[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25566]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT A GOOD FIRST STEP FOR AMERICA

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Madam Speaker, earlier today, my good friend Rahm Emanuel, 
a Democrat from Illinois, said, ``Tomorrow the House will vote on 
America's future, with an $8 trillion national debt and with a Congress 
that spent $60 billion in 6 days without a thought as to how we were 
going to pay for it.'' I could not agree more.
  The gentleman from Illinois went on to say, ``Where else could we cut 
food stamps and Medicaid?'' and he answered, ``With a Republican 
Congress'' and a lament.
  And I would ask, where else but in Washington, DC could a deficit 
reduction act that actually increases entitlements by 6.3 percent, 
instead of the planned 6.4 percent, be called a cut? The budget cuts we 
will pass tomorrow, let me say again, will still increase spending in 
Medicaid student loans and aid to dependent families. As a 
conservative, as some of my Blue Dog colleagues have said, I do not 
think this deficit reduction act goes nearly far enough to do right by 
those children and grandchildren that we raise. But it is a good first 
step. It is a modest start in the direction of putting our fiscal house 
in order. I urge my Republican and Democrat colleagues of goodwill to 
support it.

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