Pete Domenici: “Yes. Mr. President, first, I want to congratulate Senator Bond on his amendment and Senator Exon on his amendment…”

“Yes. Mr. President, first, I want to congratulate Senator Bond on his amendment and Senator Exon on his amendment, because we are going to have an opportunity here, in about 12 minutes, to vote on 2 proposals. There could be nothing closer to reflecting the difference between the 2 parties than these two amendments. So, make no bones about it, we will first vote on a Democrat amendment, which will increase taxes, no matter what you call it. You increase taxes to pay for appropriated accounts that are cut, which they are finally admitting in cutting this budget--that is, the veterans of this country. So the first vote is going to be: Do you want to raise taxes to spend more money? The second vote is going to be a Republican vote, and it will be very simple: Do you want to increase spending for veterans by cutting spending someplace else? We say, yes. We say, the American people are not interested in raising taxes. We already raised taxes 2 years ago, which was the largest tax increase in history. The President has, in his budget, $90 billion, under the rubric of ``corporate welfare''--but it is $90 billion. Senator Exon says that $90 billion is not enough to do what we want to do. We want $13 billion more because we caught them with the reality that they are reducing the level of expenditures for the veterans of this country by at least $13 billion, decimating our commitment to the veterans. As our President is prone to say, we do not want to violate our values.…”