Mark Neumann: “I think again we should emphasize that we are now talking about the present, what has happened from 1995 to 1997 and how…”

“I think again we should emphasize that we are now talking about the present, what has happened from 1995 to 1997 and how things are different, and certainly the concept of able-bodied welfare recipients leaving the welfare rolls and going to work so they have hope and opportunity in their life is certainly significant. I think it is important that we continue to contrast the present to the past, to show how different it is now, in 1995 to 1997 through the present, to what it was before. And remember the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings broken promises of a balanced budget versus now, where we are not only on track but ahead of schedule in our third year of our plan to balance the budget. And the tax increases of 1993, biggest tax increase in American history, passed in this institution by a single vote, went over the Senate in 1993; again it passed the Senate by a single vote. Taxes went up, the gasoline tax, social security tax. I would like to just point out as we talk about these families and we think about our families out there, that not only are we in the third year of a 7-year plan to balance the Federal budget and on track and ahead of schedule, we are also about to pass one of the biggest tax cuts, at least in the last 16 years and maybe ever, and we are doing that at the same time that we are balancing the budget. These tax cuts are very real.…”