Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Chairman, we are going through one of the annual rites of spring in Washington. The tulips bloom, the dogwoods…”

“Mr. Chairman, we are going through one of the annual rites of spring in Washington. The tulips bloom, the dogwoods become very beautiful, and the gentleman from Indiana introduces his amendment to kill the space station. Let me say that I will match my record on spending issues against that of the gentleman from Indiana and anybody else in this House, and I support the space station. The Citizens Against Government Waste has given me their Taxpayer Hero Award consistently. The National Taxpayers Union has named me the tightwad of the decade in terms of my votes on taxes and spending, and I am proud of that, and I support the space station. The first is that the United States taxpayers have already put $12 billion into designing the space station and building 50,000 pounds of hardware. If the amendment of the gentleman from Indiana is adopted, that $12 billion investment will just evaporate. The space station is on time, it is on budget. We have settled on a design. We are not redesigning it. We are building the hardware now and we are looking forward to the launches of the first elements sometime next year.”