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House Journal: Page 1890: Tuesday, April 25, 1995

In other words, what we've got to do in Washington now is what
you do all the time. We've got to move beyond our rhetoric to
reality. And I think it would be helpful for you because we need
your voice to be heard. And at least my experience in the
Governors Association was, or working in my own legislature was,
that on these issues we could get Republicans and Democrats
together. So let me go thorough what we've done, and what's
still to be done.
First of all, I agree with this new Congress on three issues
that were in the Republican Contract - and two of them are
already law. Number one, Congress should apply to itself all the
laws it puts on the private sector. We should know when we make
laws in Washington what we're doing to other people by
experiencing it ourselves. That was a good thing.
Number two, I signed the unfunded mandates legislation to make
it harder, but not impossible when its important, but much
harder, for congress to put on you and your taxpayers unfunded
mandates from the federal government where we make you pay for
something that we in Washington want to do. I strongly support
that, and I think all of you do, as well.
The third thing we are doing that we have not finished yet,
although both Houses have approved a version of it, is the
line-item veto. Almost every governor has it. I don't want to
embarrass anybody here, but I don't know how many times I had a
legislator say, now, Governor, I'm going to slip thin in this
bill because I've got to do it, and then you can scratch it out
for me. And it was fine. We did it. Now if they  slip it in a
bill, I have to decide what to do or not. I have to decide.
 When the farmers in Iowa desperately needed the restoration of
the tax deduction for health insurance, the 25 percent tax
deduction that self-employed farmers and others get for health
insurance, there was a provision of that bill I didn't like very
much. I had to decide, am I going to give this back to 3.3
million self-employed Americans and their families, to lower to
cost of health care by tax day, or not? But when we have the
line- item veto, It won't be that way. And we need it.
Here are the hard ones. number one, the farm bill. Should we
reduce farm supports? yes, we should, as required by GATT. I
worked hard to get the Europeans to the table in agriculture in
this trade agreement. A lot of you understand that. The deal
was, they would reduce their subsidies more that we would reduce
ours, so we would at least move toward some parity, so that our
farmers would get a fair break for a change. Now some say, let's
just get rid of all these farm support programs.
Well, if we do it now, we give our competitors the advantage we
worked for eight years to take away. We put family farms more at
risk. Now if anybody's got better ideas about what should be in
the Farm Bill, that's fine. If anybody's got a better idea about
how to save the family farmers, let's do it. If anybody has new
ideas about what should be put in for rural development, fine.
But let us do no harm. Let us not labor under the illusion that
having fought so hard to have a competitive agricultural playing
field throughout the world, having achieved a $20 billion
surplus in agriculture, we can turn and walk away from the
farmers of the country in the name of cutting spending. That is
not the way to cut the federal deficit.
I'll give you another example. Some believe that we should flat
fund the school lunch program. And then there's a big argument
in Washington, is it a cut or not. Let me tell you something,
all these block grants are designed not only to give you more
flexibility, but to save the federal government money. Now it
may be a good

Iowa General Assembly

Index: House Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1995 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments? hjourn@legis.iowa.gov.

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