Kay Bailey Hutchison: “A vote today against this amendment or against the Senator from New Jersey's amendment does not mean that we are for…”

“A vote today against this amendment or against the Senator from New Jersey's amendment does not mean that we are for carcinogens in the water. It does not mean that we do not want to take care of the young children and the elderly. We all want to make sure that our young children and our elderly people who need help have it. In fact, that is the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill is to bring the issue down not to whether we take care of people or not but how do we take care of them? What is the best way to make sure that our children have a future, that our elderly are able to be taken care of, that we do not have carcinogens in the water? The question is who makes the decision and who pays for it? What we are saying today is that the Government that is closest to the people should be making those decisions and they should pay for it after they make the decisions. The whole concept of our Government is that we do not have taxation without representation; that if we are going to have a program whoever decides that we are going to have that program should pay for it.”