John Sarbanes

In fact, the Constitution says: Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not…

Let me say to the chairman, let me make a couple of points. First of all, they cite editorials that say do an indefinite extension. I have cited on the floor today editorials that say--let me just quote a couple of them. . . . Whitewater…

They are very up front about saying ``previously informed your committee that he did not recall taking any notes.''

Certainly. More than that. More than that. And the White House's response to these overly broad requests is, What can we do with this? We have to get more rationality into the request if we are to respond to it in a reasonable period of…

If we get bogged down in finger pointing, in tearing down the President and the administration, we are just not going to be up to the challenges ahead, and all of us, all Americans, will be the losers. Let me repeat that, and all of us…

Finally an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution which calls for bringing this inquiry to an end. It goes on to point out, ``one, that a recent Resolution Trust Corporation investigation found no hint of impropriety by the Clintons…

This editorial said: Democrats want to keep the committee on a short leash by extending hearings to April 3rd with a final report to follow by May 10th. A limited extension makes sense, but an unreasonably short deadline does not. Five…

The schedule ground down. It did not intensify. And over the last 10 days we have only had 1 day of hearings.

I understand. In January and February, when we urged the committee to do an intensified schedule, when the Senate was not holding floor sessions and not voting, over that 2-month period we held only 15 hearings. The Iran-Contra Committee…

We got the Gearan notes. We held a day of hearings with Gearan. We had nothing substantially new and the same thing happened with Ickes. We got the notes. We held the hearing on both of them. In both instances we received the notes and the…

Let me give one example. Gearan came before us and he said this is how this happened. I thought it was a plausible statement, frankly. I mean, Gearan said when he packed up to go over to the Peace Corps his file was put in that box…

Of course Iran-Contra involved sending investigators overseas, if you recall, both to the Middle East and to South America.

I think the public is increasingly coming to ask those questions. They are asking the question, ``Why do you now seek another $600,000, bringing the cost of this to just under $2 million, and why are you projecting it further into the…

Why don't you do it. You had all these days when you could have done it, and you did not do it. Why don't you bring him in?

Furthermore, if the leader will yield, is it not the case that any charge relating to obstruction of justice will be handled by the independent counsel? This committee is not going to bring such a charge, or instigate any punishment. We do…

Not under the plan you put forward. You are cutting back on that. You are having senior citizens finding themselves unable to get medical care and, at the same time you are doing all this, you are going to give a big tax break.

Yesterday AT&T announced they were going to fire 30,000 people. Why in the world would you cut the taxes, in some instances in half, on the CEO's getting the stock options, who are not on their way out the door, and then turn to these…

The President could have called the Congress back. The Congress gave him a CR so the Government could continue to function. Now what is happening is, for the first time ever, the Congress is refusing to provide a CR and use that as a…

I want to make this observation about the comments of the Senator from Mississippi. Never before has the Congress used as a coercive tactic to close down the Government in order to try to gain its way for a fundamental change----

I say to the Senator that the President had other reasons as well. But since you focused on the Bureau of Census, unless the Census Bureau gets additional funds now to begin the work that needs to be done to do the decennial census in the…

We reached agreement with the President, and the Government continued to function on the basis of the continuing resolution. Now you have an instance in which you have just brought the Government to a partial shutdown by not providing a…

That is what we did with Presidents Reagan and Bush. They would veto the bills, then we would try to accommodate their veto message and work out an understanding between the executive and legislative branches. But if that was not done…

I take it from that response, if the President had a reasonably based concern that the bill would permit clear cutting, it would be a justified basis on which to veto the bill?

To make our constitutional system work requires, I believe, a certain amount of restraint and good judgment on the part of all decisionmakers. It must be an essential premise of our system that one is not willing to subvert everything, in…

Is the Senator aware that apparently, In Mariposa County, CA, home of Yosemite National Park, which has been closed through one of the busiest times of the year, the number of private sector layoffs has climbed to over 1,600 people. Most…