[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 14 (Tuesday, January 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H548-H549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


CONGRESS SHOULD STOP PARTISAN QUIBBLING AND PASS REFORMS SOUGHT BY THE 
                            AMERICAN PUBLIC

  (Mrs. SMITH of Washington asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I have been in this office now 
for 20 days, and I have been keeping a list of all of the things that 
are supposed to be kept in the budget, as the minority has listed day 
by day just about everything to be left in the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I think what I find is they did not get the message this 
last November. Balancing the budget and getting rid of the national 
debt was the No. 1 issue the American people sent us here to do. We 
cannot spend our way to recovery.
  Let us talk about what people really want. They want a strong 
America, an America in the future that will be able to pay its debt, 
and not have an America that cannot take care of its children; an 
America that can take care or 
[[Page H549]] paying the Social Security commitments that we have made 
to the elderly, not a bankrupt America that cannot take care of its 
commitments.
  Mr. Speaker, what I say today is to do that, we have to pass a 
balanced budget amendment. We have to get done with the quibbling, the 
talking about unimportant things, and pass a balanced budget amendment 
with a three-fifths tax increase vote.

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