Charles Rangel: “as I ask for opposition to the majority budget proposal, it is with the understanding and the true belief that all of us…”

“as I ask for opposition to the majority budget proposal, it is with the understanding and the true belief that all of us in this House are really looking for a better America, a more prosperous America, an improvement in the quality of life for all of our citizens. Not too long ago when President Clinton spoke to both Houses, there were a lot of people that reported that he sounded so Republican, that he had stolen every idea that only the genius of the party labeled The Grand Old Party could have. I rather thought that that was a message in saying that we all have the same objectives. We truly would like to have a smaller Government, that we would want to reduce taxes on our constituents and even our own, for that matter; that we are concerned with being able to say that during the time that we were in the Congress, we indeed improved the quality of life. That happened whether we were Republican or whether we were Democrats. I think that next to feeling good about being American, the next good feeling that we have in our country is the dignity and the pride of having a job. You have had to know unemployment, you have had to know the pain of looking at your family in the face, looking at your kids and somehow explaining why that American dream is not yours to share in.”