[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8544-H8545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    LET US DO WHAT WE ARE PAID TO DO

  (Mr. DURBIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I spent the August recess crisscrossing the 
State of Illinois from Chicago to Carbondale meeting with a variety of 

[[Page H 8545]]
different people, asking them what was on their mind and what they were 
concerned about. The one thing that came through loud and clear at 
every meeting with every group was the fact that they are beginning to 
feel that working families in this country, the middle class of 
America, the backbone of this country, are falling behind. Husbands and 
wives are both working hard, playing by the rules, beating their heads 
against the wall, pushing their credit cards to the limit, worrying 
about paying for the kids' education, worrying about their own health 
care, worrying about whether that pension is going to be around.
  Mr. Speaker, I thought to myself as I worked across the State that, 
when I come back to Washington, each day as we sit up here and debate 
the important issues I am going to try to hold those issues against 
that basic concern that I heard across Illinois. What is it we are 
doing on this floor of the House of Representatives that will respond 
to that?
  Frankly, I do not think cutting Medicare benefits responds to those 
concerns, putting an additional burden on senior citizens and their 
families. I do not think the idea of tax breaks for people making over 
$150,000 a year makes any sense at all with our budget deficit, and 
that does not help the working families. Cutting back on education? 
Heck, most of those families are praying that their kids will qualify 
for a Federal college student loan. It is their only ticket to get that 
higher education and have an opportunity, and yet on this floor we are 
talking about cutting those opportunities.
  So I hope in the weeks ahead we really can address this in a 
bipartisan fashion. I hope we can all be sensitive to the concerns of 
what has really been the strength of America now for 50 years, the 
strongest, most vibrant and growing middle class in the world. I hope 
we all are not taking pride in the politics of Washington. I hear 
people almost boasting about a train wreck that may occur. ``We may 
close down Government,'' they are saying with some level of pride. We 
should not be proud of that fact. Democrats and
 Republicans ought to sit down together and work out the problems. That 
is what we were sent here to do, and that is what we are paid to do.

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