William Orton: “continuing my reservation, I would say to the gentleman that that conference not having reached a resolution, many of us…”

“continuing my reservation, I would say to the gentleman that that conference not having reached a resolution, many of us here are concerned that in the middle of the 1996 process, as this body and the other body continue to identify areas of spending with which we disagree and seek to reduce or eliminate funding, we believe that it is just as important to allow the President to identify funding to attempt to cut as well through the line-item veto. I would simply note that on Tuesday evening, the President called upon the Congress to pass the line-item veto, at which a supermajority of both Democrats and Republicans gave him a standing ovation. I would call upon this body to do so. Mr. Speaker, I will not object, because I do understand the importance and necessity of keeping the Government operating, of having this continuing resolution. But if we are going to continue week after week or month after month passing additional continuing resolutions, I would certainly hope that the majority would include the line-item veto provisions in the next continuing resolution so that we could give that to the President and allow him to do the same thing we are attempting to do in reducing spending.”