[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 23 (Monday, February 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1213]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             LINE-ITEM VETO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Hostettler] for 2 minutes.
  Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today for a number 
of reasons. It is my hope and expectation that later this evening, this 
Chamber will pass H.R. 2 and give the President a much overdue line-
item veto. I commend my colleagues for this effort and look forward to 
casting my vote in support of this very useful tool as it will be a 
good first step in eliminating unnecessary Federal spending and put a 
bit of balance into the Federal budget process. However, I think the 
words that I should most emphasize here would be ``first step.'' Giving 
the President the power and authority to rescind spending that is 
viewed as wasteful or excessive is only the first step in the long and 
arduous journey toward fiscal responsibility. However, given the fact 
that President's Clinton's budget, which was just released today, 
contains an annual budget deficit of over $190 billion for the next 5 
years, Congress is obviously going to have to take the lead in 
instilling some kind of fiscal control in the Federal budget process.
  Line-item veto or no-line-item veto, from the looks of the red ink in 
this President's budget, it is readily apparent that if anything is 
going to be done about this country's fiscal crisis, it is going to be 
done by us. And at the risk of sounding cynical or pessimistic, we have 
not even begun to make the difficult decisions that we will undoubtedly 
have to make to put the Federal budget process and Federal spending 
back on the path toward fiscal health. It is because I am ready, even 
anxious, to make these decisions that I decided to run for Congress 
last year at this time. I looked around me, at what was happening to 
the priorities our Federal Government had established when doling out 
Federal tax dollars, my tax dollars, and I became concerned, actually 
frightened, and I thought about the future of my children. I began to 
seriously worry about the burden that trillions of dollars in debt will 
place on my children and on the children of all Americans. Each year, 
lawmakers seem to ignore what is fiscally sound economic advice from 
their constituents and endlessly deficit spend the hard working 
citizens' tax dollars. And every year that this happens, the financial 
security of our children, and our children's children is jeopardized. I 
am no longer willing to take this kind of chance with the future of our 
country. Today we celebrate the birthday of former President Ronald 
Reagan, a man whose commitment to fiscal responsibility was 
acknowledged and respected far and wide. Today I celebrate the birthday 
of another gentleman who taught me about fiscal accountability. My 
father turns 72 today, and it is from him that I learned about the 
duty, responsibility, and obligation for family that I try to 
incorporate into my life every day. It is because of this overwhelming 
sense of commitment to my family that I stand before you today. As we 
undertake this enormous task in front of us, I urge us not to lose 
sight of the fact that it will be our children that will actually 
suffer from our lack of dedication to true fiscal responsibility.


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