Maurice Hinchey: “what we have learned this afternoon is that some Members in the majority party here hate the National Endowment for the…”

“what we have learned this afternoon is that some Members in the majority party here hate the National Endowment for the Arts more than they hate energy conservation. If they really liked energy conservation, they had an opportunity to pass some responsible amendments to this bill, both in the Committee on Appropriations where it was defeated by a party line vote and out here on the full floor where they denied us the opportunity to have a vote on a bill that would have brought about $200 million in energy conservation. We are talking real energy conservation, not this little bit that the gentleman is talking about here. The gentleman does not want any energy conservation. He just cannot stand the National Endowment for the Arts more than he cannot stand energy conservation. He says it is not a cut. His bill gives us $57 million less for the National Endowment for the Arts than we had for it in 1995, and now we have a $10 million increase making us still $47 million lower than we had in 1995; and the gentleman wants to take that $10 million away. He ought to be ashamed of himself.”