[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, as we are drawing near to this 100-day 
closure, I think it is very important to talk about what we have done 
and look at this.
  I think for children what we have done has been absolutely 
outrageous. It is like we tied them to the tracks, the railroad tracks, 
and let the contract roll over them like it was a huge, huge freight 
train.
  Why do I say they were tied to the tracks? Well, first of all, we did 
things that were not quite as serious, I suppose, but the taking away 
of things or the cutting of the wings of Big Bird and some of the only 
decent programming on television, cutting of nutrition programs all 
across the board, the absolute zeroing out of summer jobs for 
adolescents in the city, strangling the National Service Program which 
was a way many young people got their college education. We absolutely 
almost zeroed that out totally, attacking math and science programs in 
the public schools when heaven only knows we need that, taking on 
student loans, one of the main ways that young people today are able to 
get their college education.
  Yes, all of those things have been put on the table, and all of those 
things have been chopped during this first 100 days. And why? Why? To 
create this great crown jewel of the contract, tax cuts, tax cuts for 
the special interests that sent people here. It is tax cuts for the 
rich, and the kids pay the bill.
  And I think there is something terribly wrong with that math, and so 
I am not happy about this first 100 days.
  But there is another part of this first 100 days that I think is very 
troubling. For everyone else in the contract, this contract went 
rolling along like mad, but when it came to the politicians' interests, 
the contract comes to a screeching halt.
  Watch it come to a screeching halt today on term limits. You are 
going to find that is the one area of the contract they are going to 
decide to amend or play with or whatever.
  Now I do not happen to be for term limits. I believe the Constitution 
and this great Republic have lived over 200 years without this and so I 
do not think it needs to be there. But many people played on the 
cynicism that was out there and said this was important.
  And yet we are seeing cynicism piled up at the door of this body 
every single day. We are seeing admissions in Time magazine that they 
are letting special interests into Members' offices to write the 
legislation and to write amendments.
  Never seen that before. Absolutely rotten, I think. And that may be 
why kids were on the line. They do not have anybody giving big money 
that could get into Members' offices and write this legislation.
  We saw the gift ban turned down. On the very, very first day of this 
body, the gift ban got turned down. Nobody wanted to stop the gifts. 
Well, I did, and I think that is an important reform that we needed.
  We have seen nothing moving on campaign finance reform that the 
gentlewoman from Ohio was talking about that is so important. And we 
have seen the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct play all sorts 
of games with the rules. They have changed the rules. And we see ethics 
violations that are allegedly being piled up at the door, and nothing 
happening.
  So it is very interesting. For everyone else, you are going to get 
your crown jewel. Special interests, you are getting to write the 
legislation. The kids are going to pay the bill. And for politicians 
things aren't going to change.
  I do not think that is what the American people had in mind when they 
started into this whole contract. But I certainly hope they look at 
this and look at it very carefully.
  Because I think if we are going to see more of this after this 100 
days, we are in deep trouble in this country as we are breaking all 
sorts of commitments we shouldn't be breaking to the only hope we have 
for the next century and that is our children, that is our young 
people, and to treat them this way and this rashly in the name of 
paying back the folks who paid the campaign winners' bills in the last 
election is positively wrong morally and every other way.


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