[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 14, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           TIME FOR A CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Wyoming [Mr. Thomas] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMAS of Wyoming. Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about 
change, to talk about change here in the Congress. It is time that we 
change the way Congress does business.

                              {time}  1050

  I am a supporter of that. We need procedural changes that will bring 
about changes in results. Nearly everyone here goes home and talks to 
their constituents about the debt, talks to their constituents about 
the deficit. We talk about too much regulation and too much control. 
And, yet, in order to bring about some changes, we have to make some 
procedural changes here and come back, and they are not willing to do 
that. They are not willing to do that.
  Our constituents and voters, for a good reason, talk about the things 
that happen here that ought to be changed. They talk about the results 
that are not the kind of results that you and I want: Too much taxes; 
too much government; too much regulation.
  But we do not bring about the changes to that, because, indeed, there 
need to be some structural changes in order to do it. You cannot expect 
different results by continuing to do the same thing. And we have an 
opportunity to do that.
  I guess my point is, we talk and talk and talk about it, but it is 
right here. We can do it. It is on the floor. The bills are here to 
make the changes.

  I am talking about changes that make the Congress serve under the 
same laws that apply to everyone else. I am talking about term limits. 
I am talking about balanced budgets. I am talking about budgetary 
reforms, procedural reforms that will allow the results to be 
different.
  Let us talk a little bit about limiting the terms of Members. A 
number of States have taken the initiative to do this. Of course, it is 
not going to come from the Congress. The Congress will never endorse 
that issue, until forced by the States and by the voters. And I will 
admit, it is not an easy issue. Intellectually, I was opposed to that 
issue for a long time. I thought that is not the right thing to do. Why 
should we limit the voting privileges of you and I as voters, when we 
have in the House every 2 years a chance to do that? But having been 
here a while, I have noticed that doesn't happen. It is a peculiar type 
of thing.
  A high percentage of the Members of the House have been here a 
relatively short time, but some have been here forever. And we see the 
arrogance of longevity. We see it last week. We see it next week. We 
see people have been here so long and been in control of this House for 
40 years, and have been led to believe that the rules do not apply to 
them. And I know of no other way to do it than to have a nationwide 
term limitation. I think it has merit and that we can do that. We can 
move forward on that.
  Line item veto. Almost everyone in this place would agree with line 
item veto. They talk about line item veto. President Clinton talked 
about line item veto in his campaign. He came here, and the leadership 
of the House and Senate said, oh, no, we are not going to do that. We 
will come up with sort of a wimpy little thing that says you can 
override it by a majority vote. That is not a line item veto. Veto 
means two-thirds. We could have a line item veto right away, if we 
wanted to do that.
  Talk about deficit reduction. There are bills here that would say 
that if you reduce spending in one category, instead of shifting it to 
another category, that it would reduce the deficit. It would be 
dedicated to deficit and debt reduction. What is wrong with that? 
President Clinton talked about all the cuts in his budget last year. 
The fact is, it was a $30 billion increase. It wasn't cuts at all. It 
was transfers of spending from one category to another. If you are 
going to cut, we ought to dedicate that to deficit reduction.
  The balanced budget amendment. Some call it a gimmick. The fact is 
that we have not had a balanced budget for years and years and years in 
this House. The fact is we do not do it without a balanced budget 
amendment. The fact is you do need the discipline of a balanced budget 
amendment, to say here is the amount of money we have, here is revenue, 
and you have to balance revenue with income. We do it in my State of 
Wyoming. Of course, it is painful from time to time. But what it does 
is it calls us to take account of benefits versus costs. And if it is 
worth having, if it is worth paying for, you have it. If it isn't, you 
don't. You cannot simply max out your credit card, as we have been 
doing in the past.
  We need structural changes, we need procedural changes. They can be 
done. They can be done, if the majority will stop opposing the changes 
in the procedure that will bring about changes in the results.

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