Political Quotes

“I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds, just to point out to the gentleman that, of course, the administration and most of the Members of the majority were supporting a President's budget that would have spent $7 billion in 1996 more than what the Democrats spent in 1995. So in other words, the Democrats in the House essentially supported, not all but the greatest number of them, supported the President's proposal to increase Washington spending by $7 billion, discretionary spending by $7 billion over 1995 and 1996. We advocated making a reduction of somewhere over $23 billion, from 1995 and 1996. We ended up with $23 billion worth of savings in Washington spending, the single greatest amount of savings in at least the last 50 years. So to argue that our budget is backloaded is kind of absurd, because we have been able to force the greatest amount of savings in over 50 years. We accomplished that just the opposite of what the administration wanted to do. We did not backload. We got in there in the very first year, I would say to the gentleman from Virginia, and we made the most significant downsizing of Washington spending and Washington bureaucracy since World War II. So let us not argue about who is doing the backloading. We are not doing any backloading. We are doing a lot of heavy lifting, and I want to compliment the House. There were only 32 votes against it, so we are in the midst of a real change in this city.”