Martin Hoke: “Well, I would like to suggest an answer to the question that I asked I suppose rhetorically earlier, and that is why is…”

“Well, I would like to suggest an answer to the question that I asked I suppose rhetorically earlier, and that is why is this being portrayed the way it is by the other side of the aisle? I believe that it is because for some reason, the liberals particularly, and not all of the members of the minority party in the Congress are doing this. But there is a strident and ugly strain that is brought out on this floor every day by people who have an extraordinarily great vested interest in keeping the system the way that it is. And what you find out is that what is really going on here is that this is about politics and politics is about power. Certain Members of the minority party in the Congress believe that this is the golden spike, this is what they need. This is the issue that is going to bring them back the House in 1996. To the extent that they are successful in confusing the public, perhaps they are right about that. Mr. Speaker, I thought there was an extraordinarily refreshing breath of fresh air that came from, of all places, the liberal journal of record in this country, the Washington Post this year, because they recognize exactly what is going on in terms of this partisan battle, and that there is no place for it if we are in fact going to take advantage of the opportunity, which it is a small window of opportunity to fix this, to make it right and to move forward in a way that is fair to all Americans.”