Barbara Cubin: “the gentleman from Maryland who just preceded me said that this impasse has occurred because of the Republican Party…”

“the gentleman from Maryland who just preceded me said that this impasse has occurred because of the Republican Party, the majority in Congress, wants to give tax breaks to the wealthy. That is simply not the truth. The truth is this impasse has occurred because the majority of this Congress, both the House and the Senate, want a balanced budget in 7 years. The President signed Public Law 104-56, and I would like to read that. It says, ``The President and the Congress shall enact legislation in the first session of the 104th Congress to achieve a balanced budget not later than the fiscal year 2002 as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.'' The fact is the President does not want a balanced budget. The President's extremist liberal agenda and the extremist liberal agenda of Democrats on this side of the aisle simply cannot go forward with a balanced budget, because their agenda costs more than the money that we have coming into the Congress. That would leave us with two alternatives. We would have to increase taxes to support that agenda that the President insists upon, and continue to go deeper and deeper into debt, thus mortgaging our children's future, selling our children out. We have all heard the saying, ``Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'' The President has introduced four budgets. None of them have been balanced. The most nearly balanced was $87 billion in the red.”