Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, the Boehlert amendment actually doubles the impact of a provision in the existing bill that is before the House. I had intended to come to the floor in opposition to the existing provision. So let me double my opposition to the Boehlert amendment. Because what we are talking about here is a whole new entitlement. An entitlement which, if the Boehlert amendment is adopted, amounts to $1.4 billion of mandatory spending; $1.4 billion in taxpayers' dollars which will be spent at the same time that we in this Congress for the last 14 months have been working diligently to pare down the discretionary budget. At the same time that we are telling America how important it is to get entitlements under control and to get a leash on the entitlement portion of the budget, which represents two-thirds of the $1.6 trillion that this Federal Government spends every single year. At the same time that we are saying we cannot get President Clinton to the table to agree on how to pare down Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and all of the other entitlements that are going rapidly out of control, all of a sudden, quietly, here this morning, we hear the gentleman from New York, my very good friend, come here and say that the provision in this bill which creates a $700 million new entitlement for cattle farmers is not enough and it should be raised to a $1.4 billion entitlement.”