[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      BRING UP THE LINE-ITEM VETO

  (Mr. KANJORSKI asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I could not help but hear some of my 
colleagues on the other side engage in some rhetoric which I think is 
unfortunate at this time, I might say, on our side also. It sort of 
indicates where this impasse is starting to take this Congress, and I 
hope the American people will give us a little sufferance here because 
if they do not, they may start to believe that we have defeated the 
success of representative democracy in America under the Constitution 
as we know it.
  The fact of the matter is we have a fundamental philosophical 
disagreement here, and we may have to recognize we are not going to 
come to a conclusion on it. We may not get an agreement on 
reconciliation and balancing the budget.
  But this country must go on. What I would suggest is there is a tool, 
although I disagree with the tool, that was passed by this House and by 
this Senate but not sent to the President, that would resolve this 
problem, and that is the line-item veto. If the conference committee 
will meet today, agree on a conference report between the House and the 
Senate, bring it back to this House and send it to the President so he 
can sign it, he will have the authority to take the objectionable parts 
out of the appropriations bills which are keeping this Government shut 
down.

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