[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 177 (Thursday, November 9, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12006-H12007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BONIOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I have asked to speak for the purposes of 
engaging the distinguished majority leader in a colloquy about our 
schedule given the fact that tomorrow is Veterans' Day and Members have 
travel plans, and parades and other events to honor our veterans.
  Could the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] enlighten us on the 
schedule, what the schedule will be in the next couple of days as we 
move forward with these debt-limit bills and continuing resolutions?
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Bonior] for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, of course we are all aware that the end-of-the-year 
scheduling difficulties that are commonplace, especially to the first 
session of any Congress, are upon us.
  We have passed the continuing resolution over to the Senate, and they 
are working on that right now as I understand. We are now beginning to 
proceed on the short-term debt limit. We should expect to perhaps 
finish that sometime around 5 o'clock this evening. It will take us 
something in the neighborhood of an hour, maybe a little longer, to get 
the paperwork over to the Senate. The Senate, I am advised, will begin 
consideration of the short-term debt limit as soon as we have all our 
papers to them.

                              {time}  1400

  We are not certain how long it will take them to work on that. We 
must be prepared. At least at this time, let me say, until we know 
something more certain about possible Senate action, we will stand 
prepared to receive their work back on either of the two bills tonight, 
and hopefully we can do that tonight and perhaps complete the process. 
But I must say to the Members, having been through this many times in 
the past, I would not expect to be able to catch a plane home before 
sometime tomorrow morning at the earliest, and, quite frankly, I think 
we would probably be most well prepared if we prepared ourselves to be 
here working until noon tomorrow.
  I think that right now would represent a fair degree of optimism, 
depending on how things go between the House and Senate, and as they 
go, of course, we will have additional announcements. At any point we 
have something more definitive that we can share with the Members, we 
will do an announcement of this type and keep you apprised.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, how late does he 
expect to go this evening.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
think what we would have to do is take the measure of the Senate's 
action. We would be, of course, prepared to stand in recess to await 
the Senate's work, presuming they could get it done in anything like a 
reasonable hour.
  I think there comes a time when one perhaps makes the decision we are 
better off to surrender the evening and 

[[Page H 12007]]
prepare to come back in the morning to take up that work. But I think, 
in the interests of the Members, we would want to hold ourselves 
available for as late as what might be reasonable, in the hopes that we 
might be able to get our folks on an early morning plane, if that is an 
option available. So we will be trying to evaluate that and make an 
announcement as we get better information.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, understanding the 
difficulty in guesstimating what time this is all going to culminate, 
let me ask my friend from Texas one other question. On Monday next, has 
he made any decisions about when we should be here for the first vote?
  Mr. ARMEY. Again, I thank the gentleman for his inquiry. The fact is 
that, again, to a large extent, we are waiting to see what happens with 
the current work under consideration between the House and Senate, but 
I think a prudent advice I could give the Members would be to be 
prepared to be back in the Chamber by noon on Monday. Again, if I have 
any news to share on that later on, and hopefully good news, I will 
announce it, but I would be prepared, I think, to return to the Chamber 
on noon on Monday.

  Mr. BONIOR. I thank my colleague.

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