Byrd's words today, demean the office of "Senator"~ Here's another article on the exchange today....Is there any wonder that people don't respect politicians much? I hope Byrd hears from EVERY voter in the US....what a COMPLETE jerk! Looks like senility has "set in".....
O'Neill Near Tears in Confrontation
By Alan Fram
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, February 7, 2002; 5:33 PM
WASHINGTON –– Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill visibly fought back emotion on
Thursday during a bitter verbal confrontation with the Senate's senior
Democrat that ranged from congressional rule-making to both men's careers
and poor upbringings.
During a Senate Budget Committee hearing, an angry Sen. Robert Byrd,
D-W.Va., a member of Congress since 1953, engaged O'Neill in a remarkably
emotional exchange for nearly 15 minutes. Afterward, O'Neill said he had
responded to Byrd with "fire."
At several points, Byrd waved President Bush's new budget, which used a
picture of Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians to criticize congressional
constraints on decision-making by federal agencies.
"I just want to remind you, Mr. Secretary, that a lot of us were here before
you came," Byrd, 84, told O'Neill, whose eyes seemed teary at points. "And
with all due respect to you, you're not Alexander Hamilton," the nation's
first Treasury secretary and a founding father.
O'Neill, 66, pausing to gather himself, answered from the witness table in a
voice quavering with emotion.
"I've dedicated my life to doing what I can to get rid of rules that limit
human potential. And I'm not going to stop," O'Neill said.
Prior to joining the Bush administration, O'Neill had been chairman of Alcoa
Inc., where he won praise for management innovations that enhanced the
aluminum producer's profits.
The only specific rules that O'Neill pointedly cited on Thursday as unjust
were "rules that said, 'Coloreds cannot enter here.'"
Though O'Neill did not mention it, when Byrd was younger he was a member of
the Ku Klux Klan, which he has since renounced.
O'Neill has had other confrontations with members of Congress during his 13
months in office, though Thursday's was exceptional for its passion.
His frank assessments of congressional activities have included a
characterization of one Republican economic stimulus package as "show
business" because of his correct assessment that it would not be approved by
Congress. That episode led one Republican congressman to call for his
resignation, but Bush has stood by him.
On Thursday, Byrd repeatedly said that he and not O'Neill had been elected
by the voters.
"They're not CEO's of multi-billion-dollar corporations," Byrd said of the
voters. "They can't just pick up the phone and call a Cabinet secretary. In
time of need, they come to us, the people come to us," their members of
Congress.
O'Neill said he objected to what he called Byrd's inference.
"I started my life in a house without water or electricity," said O'Neill,
who grew up in a low-income St. Louis, Mo., household. "So I don't cede to
you the high moral ground of not knowing what life is like in a ditch."
"Well, Mr. Secretary, I lived in a house without electricity too, no running
water, no telephone, a little wooden outhouse," said Byrd, who was raised by
his aunt and uncle in West Virginia's coal country.
Byrd also objected to remarks O'Neill had made previously to a business
group, when O'Neill said some rules were "like the Lilliputians tying us to
the ground," adding, "God didn't send them."
Byrd said he believed O'Neill's remarks were aimed at the Senate's so-called
Byrd rule, named after the senator, which limits the items that can be put
on a tax bill.
O'Neill said "I stand by" those comments, but said he was referring more
broadly to rules that inhibit progress.
"What I deeply believe is this: When we have rules that were made by men
that restrict human potential, they should be changed," O'Neill said.
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