[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 30 (Wednesday, February 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1140
 NATIONAL SECURITY LEGISLATION PROMISES EMOTION BUT BIPARTISAN SUPPORT 
                                EXPECTED

  (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am going to roll up my 
pant legs because it is too late to save my shoes. As we prepare to 
debate H.R. 7 today, one thing we are going to do throughout this 
debate is we are going to call Members on the facts. There is going to 
be a lot of emotion here, and some say when you do not have the facts 
on your side, you can resort to emotional arguments like throwing out 
huge numbers, like throwing out neat-sounding terms.
  But, Mr. Speaker, in today's debate and in tomorrow's debate, we are 
going to call Members on the facts as they are. If we have a clean and 
open debate on what H.R. 7 is all about, as we did in the committee, we 
will find that this is not a Republican issue; we will find, as we did 
in the committee, that 11 Democrats joined with every Republican for 
the largest bipartisan vote out of committee of any of the contract 
items. The final vote was 41 to 13.
  So as we listen to the rhetoric today, Mr. Speaker, I say to the 
Members, keep your eyes on your shoes because it is going to be flowing 
hot and heavy, but we are going to be here to make sure the facts are 
brought forth and that the arguments that are used to base a decision 
on the issue will in fact be available for all of our colleagues.


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