William R. Richardson: “Are we moving too fast without taking proper precautions that will be costly in the future? The Speaker did the right…”

“Are we moving too fast without taking proper precautions that will be costly in the future? The Speaker did the right thing to fire Christina Jeffrey, but what is shocking is that a person with these views could have been hired in the first place. Are we moving ahead on unfunded mandates legislation without recognizing the impact it might have on clean air, on clean water, on civil rights, on disabilities, on health and safety? Am I correctly hearing that the new majority wants to exempt all Contract With America legislation in this legislation? As we move ahead on the balanced budget amendment, which I have supported, does it not make sense to specify from where these cuts are coming? Do we really want to amend the Constitution to have a super majority on taxes? What if we are in a recession? What if we are in a war? Let us make this balanced budget amendment work. Mr. Speaker, let us have open rules. Let us be offered alternatives. Let us participate in a bipartisan way to deal with these problems. Let us not make mistakes now that we will regret later.”