[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 135 (Friday, September 23, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1040
 
                CONTRACT WITH AMERICA: LET'S GET SERIOUS

  (Mr. TORRES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, next Tuesday, House Republican incumbents 
and Republican candidates for Congress will climb the Capitol steps to 
sign a contract with the Republican leadership. Led by our colleagues 
on the other side, Republicans will promise to wage a holy war by 
fighting for a balanced budget amendment.
  I look forward to this spectacle. The last time the Republicans made 
a promise to the American people, they said ``Read my lips.'' At least 
this time we will get it in writing.
  If they are going to balance the budget, why do they not offer the 
American people something new and different.
  Why do they not give out cash rebates. That is right, rebates. Why do 
they not give back to the American people all the tax dollars they took 
away during the Reagan-Bush years. It was their spend-and-borrow 
economics that gave us the enormous deficits all Americans are paying 
off today.
  Let us give cash rebates. That is better than making massive cuts in 
aid to children, to the elderly, to the infirmed. That is better than 
making massive cuts in aid to depressed neighborhoods in our cities and 
farming communities ravaged by natural disaster.

  A balanced budget amendment is an empty promise. At least rebates 
would mean something. Or, we could pass real legislation like the 
Democratic deficit-cutting package we approved last year which cut the 
deficit in half.
  I appeal to Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey.
  Let us get serious. Let us make a bipartisan contract with the 
American people.
  Let us get to work.

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