[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 179 (Monday, November 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16971-S16973]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  A SHUTDOWN OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me comment on some of the discussion 
that has taken place on the floor of the Senate today. First of all, I 
think if there is a shutdown of the Federal Government, there will be 
no credit in any corner of this town, only blame and, in my judgment, 
justifiable blame. We ought not be at this position. We should not get 
to the point of a shutdown of Government services. We 

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ought not have a train wreck. And we certainly ought not have any kind 
of a default on the amount of money that is owed by the Federal 
Government.
  It seems to me logical that the leaders of Congress and the President 
should and will sit down and discuss the issues that are between the 
two sides and resolve them. It is interesting to me, this is not even 
the stadium where the contest is going to occur. The major contest on 
the reconciliation bill is going to occur in the stadium sometime in 
the month of December. This is the bridge on the way to the stadium. 
The continuing resolution and the debt ceiling issue come to us with 
attachments, little extras added on, that those who put them on 
understand the President will not accept. So it does create a 
circumstance where we now have an 11th hour problem.
  I hope this gets solved between now and midnight tonight. There is no 
reason for the Government to shut down. But I do want to say, those who 
have made a case today on the floor of the Senate that this occurs 
because they have a plan and no one else does, because their plan will 
work and no other plan will, because their plan calls for a balanced 
budget and no one else wants one, is just hogwash. That is simply not 
the case.
  The case here is not a difference on the destination. I do not know 
of anybody in this Chamber who does not think there needs to be a 
balance between spending and revenues.
  We need to balance the Federal budget. There are many different ways 
to get to that point. And the debate, as aggressive and as significant 
as it is, is a debate about priorities.
  We ought to be debating priorities. It only behooves the political 
process, in my judgment, to have one side which says, ``Roll over and 
play dead,'' while the other side says, ``Here is the only way, here is 
the road to a balanced budget.'' I tell you what all of this is about, 
in my judgment, when you take a look at the priorities. It is about 
money.
  There is an article in the Washington Post about a speech given by 
the Speaker of the House, Speaker Gingrich, which says that the problem 
in this country is that we need more campaign cash. We need more money 
spent on political campaigns. Of course, that defies traditional 
opinion, and certainly defies the judgment that I hold. There is too 
much money in politics and too much money in campaigns.
  The Speaker says the problem is there is not enough money; we need 
more spending on political campaigns. What a lot of nonsense.
  The problem here, even on these issues, is money. Those who have are 
going to do just fine under these priorities and those who do not have 
so much are going to find they are going to have some problems. That is 
where the difference in priorities come in.
  Let me just show a couple of quotes to my colleagues. These are not 
from a Democrat. They are from a Republican, Kevin Phillips, a 
Republican political analyst. Here is how he says it --again, not a 
Democrat--a Republican sees it.
  He says:

       The revolutionary ideology driving the new Republican 
     Medicare proposal is also simple: Cut middle-class programs 
     as much as possible and give the money back to the private 
     sector business, finance, and high-income taxpayers.

  That is not a Democrat or a partisan. That is a Republican observing 
the problem with this plan, these so-called reforms.
  One more from Kevin Phillips, a Republican analyst, who says it this 
way:

       Remember, at the same time as the Republicans proposed to 
     reduce Medicare spending by $270 billion over seven years 
     they want to cut taxes for corporations, investors, and 
     affluent families by $245 billion over the same period. This 
     is no coincidence.

  Again, not a Democrat speaking, a Republican speaking about the 
dilemma of this plan.
  I simply observe this. This notion that everyone is to tighten their 
belts and this plan towards a balanced budget requires equality of 
sacrifice, and everybody in America is told it is time to buckle up, 
that we are going to hunker down and solve this problem--well, it is 
not quite true. What has happened this year is we have seen the 
priorities in the appropriations bills and the authorization bills 
established that, in my judgment, are not the right priorities for the 
country.
  Yes, we should cut spending, and there are ways to cut spending in 
significant areas of the Federal budget. But the fact is that we, of 
course, have not gotten the appropriations bills done. The Congress has 
passed only a couple of appropriations bills that have gone to the 
President. Most of them are not passed. It is months late.
  The reconciliation bill, which is now going to be the subject of this 
debate in December, is 5 months late. June 15 is date by which the 
Republicans who run the Congress are required to have a reconciliation 
bill passed by the Congress. It is 5 months late. The reconciliation 
bill has not even had a conference.
  Those who would be expected to be conferees on the Democratic side 
are unaware of any meetings held, not invited to any meetings, 5 months 
later no reconciliation bill, and all of the appropriations bills that 
are not done--that is most of them--the fact is that they have not been 
done largely because of hangups and disagreements among Republicans. 
They cannot agree among themselves. They have very controversial issues 
that hang out there. So the bills do not get moving.
  If all the appropriations bills were passed, we would not have a 
shutdown tonight because all of the appropriations bills would be law. 
But they are not passed. Even those that have been passed by one 
Chamber or another demonstrate to me that it is not a case of people 
saying, let us all tighten our belts.
  I have in my mind the defense bill. That came to the floor of the 
Senate, and it had a requirement, or request, by the Secretary of 
Defense which says, here is what we want for the defense of our 
country. Guess what? The conservative Senators said: We want $7 billion 
more. You do not want to build star wars right now. We want to build 
it. You do not want to build B-2 bombers. We insist you buy 20 of them 
for $30 billion. F-15's, buy more; F-16's, buy more; two amphibious 
assault ships, we do not want to choose between the two. Let us buy 
both, one for $900 million, one for $1.3 billion.
  I could read the rest. UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, a whole series 
of add-ons that were not requested by the military, not by the branch 
services, the Air Force, the Marines, the Army, the Navy--not by the 
Secretary of Defense. Just by conservatives standing on the floor 
saying: We are not spending enough; we want to spend more.
  The only two areas where they want to spend more is, one, when the 
defense bill comes to the floor, they say, let us spend money not 
requested. And, second, according to the Speaker, let us spend more on 
political campaigns. We do not have enough spending in political 
campaigns.
  I do not have the foggiest idea where people get these notions. There 
is too much spending in political campaigns. That is the problem. It 
ought to be cut down.
  Guess what? All those folks who spend money on political campaigns 
are not going to grimace when they see this new Republican revolution 
because the fact is, they are treated with kid gloves. It is the other 
folks that have to tighten the belts that grimace a little bit when 
they see the results of their programs.
  My point is that this is a legitimate debate about priorities. But 
even as we debate priorities about where to cut spending, as we do 
that, there is no reason at all to allow the Government to shut down 
tonight. Leaders of Congress and this President have a responsibility, 
in my judgment, to sit down and think through this, and to clearly 
decide immediately to pass a continuing resolution and a debt extension 
that is clean, that gets us into the middle of December when we are 
going to have the real debate about the reconciliation bill.
  No one ought to shy away from the debate about priorities. That is 
what this is all about. There is no problem with that. But it does not 
make any sense at all for us to be hung up on the continuing resolution 
and debt extension with provisions put on each of them in a manner 
where it is well known the President will be required to veto.

  So my hope is, between now and midnight tonight, the President and 
the leaders of Congress can agree on a clean continuing resolution and 
a clean debt extension. There is no reason to 

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hang Congress up and have the Government shut down and default on debt 
in the next couple of weeks. Let us have this debate about priorities. 
But let us do that in December on the reconciliation bill.
  But I did want to take the floor today simply to say this is not as 
it is characterized by some as one side of the aisle wanting to cut 
spending and the other side does not. I think I have just demonstrated 
in at least one of the largest areas of Federal spending where there is 
precious little appetite to do anything other than to spend more by 
conservatives who come to the floor. It is a big jobs program. There is 
no belt-tightening when that bill comes up.
  I hope when we debate and sort through these priorities in the middle 
of December and write a reconciliation bill that we will do the best 
with what each side wants: expanding economy, more jobs, and better 
opportunity in the private sector. We also want to ensure fairness in 
the spending priorities and budget priorities here in the Congress.
  I think when Kevin Phillips, who is not a Democrat--a Republican--
evaluates the set of priorities that is brought to us now by the 
Republicans, it demonstrates once again that there is plenty of room 
for disagreement, and I think also plenty of room for compromise 
hopefully in the middle of December when the American people would 
expect us to reach agreement. But, between now and then, there is no 
excuse to have the Government shut down or to have a default at the end 
of this evening.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________