[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       WHAT RECONCILIATION MEANS

  (Mr. BOYD asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BOYD. Madam Speaker, the Republican leadership has announced 
earlier that tomorrow we will vote on budget reconciliation. I wanted 
to understand better what reconciliation meant, so I went to Webster. 
And let me read to you what it means to reconcile: to restore to 
friendship or harmony; secondly, to make consistent or congruous; 
thirdly, to check a financial account against another for accuracy. 
That is Webster. The Republican budget reconciliation certainly does 
not restore friendship and harmony since they have been unwilling to 
include any Democrats, including our Blue Dog Coalition, in the 
discussion of this huge deficit problem. And it certainly does not make 
our financial accounts balance since it will increase our annual 
deficit by more than $16 billion. Under this administration and 
Republican leadership in Congress, our national debt has shot through 
the $8 trillion mark and continues to rise.

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