[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 137 (Tuesday, September 27, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        REHIRE THE FACTS-CHECKER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentlewoman from Colorado 
[Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized during morning business for 2 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I realize that Members of Congress are 
fun targets for the news media, but ABC News has put me in a very 
difficult position. I cannot decide whether I am a target or whether 
they are trying to help me. They must have fired their facts-checker, 
the facts-checker must have gone away through budget cuts or something, 
because they keep running a story about how I am the poster child and I 
have this humongous pension that is waiting for me out there the minute 
I quit.
  I must admit, the first time I heard this I got very excited and 
thought, what am I doing hanging around here if there is a pot of gold 
down there waiting for me in Treasury. Unfortunately, when I got to 
check the facts, I found out that in order to get anywhere near what 
they were talking about, I had to live to be more than 150 years old, 
and we had to have double-digit inflation every year and keeping the 
pension up to that level.
  Well, maybe those things are going to happen. One cannot say that 
they could not possibly happen, but I really rather doubt that I am 
going to live that long. I certainly hope we do not have double-digit 
inflation that long.
  So now I am perplexed, as they keep running this story, as to whether 
they may be sending another message. Maybe they are trying to say to 
people, ``If you don't vote for Schroeder, she is going to get this 
huge pension.'' And maybe they think then that that is really helping 
me. If that is what they think, I am wondering if I have to report this 
to the Federal Elections Commission as a campaign contribution.

                              {time}  1050

  I just do not know. I really wish, wherever their fact-checker is, 
they would get the fact-checker back, because I think this is only 
confusing the whole thing.

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