I know there are still serious differences over the details of the unfunded mandates legislation but I want to work with you to make sure we pass a reasonable bill which will protect the national interest and give justified relief where we need to give it.

For years, Congress concealed in the budget scores of pet spending projects.  Last year was no different.  There was a million dollars to study stress in plants and $ 12 million for a tick removal program that didn’t work.  It’s hard to remove ticks; those of us who’ve had them know.

But I’ll tell you something, if you’ll give me the line-item veto, I’ll remove some of that unnecessary spending.

But, I think we should all remember, and almost all of us would agree, that Government still has important responsibilities.

Our young people—­we should think of this when we cut—­our young people hold our future in their hands.  We still owe a debt to our veterans.  And our senior citizens have made us what we are.

Budget

Now, my budget cuts a lot.  But it protects education, veterans, Social Security and Medicare, and I hope you will do the same thing.  You should, and I hope you will.

And when we give more flexibility to the states, let us remember that there are certain fundamental national needs that should be addressed in every state, north and south, east and west.

Immunization against childhood disease, school lunches in all our schools, Head Start, medical care and nutrition for pregnant women and infants—­all these things are in the national interest.

I applaud your desire to get rid of costly and unnecessary regulations, but when we deregulate let’s remember what national action in the national interest has given us:  safer food for our families, safer toys for our children, safer nursing homes for our parents, safer cars and highways and safer workplaces, cleaner air and cleaner water.  Do we need common sense and fairness in our regulations?  You bet we do.  But we can have common sense and still provide for safe drinking water.  We can have fairness and still clean up toxic dumps and we ought to do it.

Should we cut the deficit more?  Well of course we should.  Of course we should.  But we can bring it down in a way that still protects our economic recovery and does not unduly punish people who should not be punished, but instead should be helped.

I know many of you in this chamber support the balanced-budget amendment.  I certainly want to balance the budget.  Our Administration has done more to bring the budget down and to save money than any in a very, very long time.

If you believe passing this amendment is the right thing to do, then you have to be straight with the American people.  They have a right to know what you’re going to cut, what taxes you’re going to raise, how it’s going to affect them.

And we should be doing things in the open around here.  For example, everybody ought to know if this proposal is going to endanger Social Security.  I would oppose that, and I think most Americans would.