[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 183 (Friday, November 17, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S17245]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   STATUS OF THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, throughout the day, I have been in 
consultation with Members of the House of Representatives representing 
northern Virginia and other regions, as well as many other of the 
Senators here, including my distinguished colleague, Senator Lott.
  On behalf of many Senators, I say to our distinguished whip--at the 
moment, the acting majority leader--there is a strong desire to put the 
Government back to work, but doing it only once we reach an agreement 
on this CR. It had been my hope and expectation today that, assuming 
the President agrees to not more than 7 years for the decision to reach 
and get a balanced budget--that is the keystone of the architecture on 
which to build a compromise, given that we can reach a level of 
expenditures which would enable the Government to function between now 
and, say, the middle of December. That leaves the middle ground of the 
important method by which the economic assumptions are made, which 
assumptions lay out the course to reach a balanced budget by no later 
than 2002. And I will be a part of the meetings tomorrow on this CR 
with the distinguished acting majority leader. But I hope that you can 
provide some encouragement that this area of the economic assumptions 
will be examined in terms of some measure of compromise.
  Mr. LOTT. If the Senator will yield for a response, Mr. President, I 
do want to take note of the fact that there have been discussions 
underway today between the majority leadership and the White House 
representatives. I know the Senator from Virginia has been following 
that very closely. I know he and the majority leader and the Members of 
Congress would like to see this matter resolved so that we could get an 
agreement on the level of the continuing spending resolution; but, more 
importantly, that we also get a commitment to this 7-year balanced 
budget; the two are linked together. They are very important, and we 
believe that an agreement should be reached so that the Federal workers 
in this area, and around the country, should and can go back to work.
  We feel that the President should commit to that 7-year balanced 
budget by the year 2002. We think there must be honest numbers in how 
that is achieved. It cannot be done by some of the smoke and mirrors we 
have seen in the past. But the efforts will continue Saturday morning, 
as the Senator noted. I know he will be here on duty working to try to 
achieve that goal. I think it is possible, and I certainly hope it can 
be done. And if it is done, then we can go forward with serious 
negotiations to reach an agreement to achieve a balanced budget for all 
of the people of this country.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished leader. Just a 
concluding observation. Assuming that we can get a CR--and I strongly 
believe if we can reach some form of understanding on the manner in 
which we establish the economic assumptions, we could have a very 
strong participation from the Democratic side; and given that 
bipartisanship, it is this Senator's belief that we could then hope to 
have an equally strong bipartisan and serious address of this important 
act we just passed, the balanced budget act of 1995.
  Mr. LOTT. To respond, I certainly hope so. Again, I want to emphasize 
that it is important that it be very carefully worded, carefully 
crafted. We cannot agree to wording that would not achieve the goals 
that were voted on just a short time ago here in this body of a 
balanced budget in 7 years. We faced the tough decisions, we have made 
them, we voted for it, and it is passed.

  But if we can get the agreement along the lines we talked about, I 
think it would have very strong bipartisan support. As a matter of 
fact, I know that there is growing support on both sides of the aisle 
to make this commitment to a balanced budget. We did not get any votes 
from the other side of the aisle just a few minutes ago, but I know 
there is a growing discomfort because three-fourths of the American 
people fully believe we should have a balanced budget. They want that 
commitment. And what the President has been saying, quite frankly, is 
he wants more spending, and he does not want a balanced budget. That is 
beginning to have a negative impact on him. So I think there is 
movement, and there should be. We should work this out. We should do 
the people's business. The President vetoed the continuing resolution 
that provided for more spending. He shut down the Government. But 
everybody has made their points now, and we need to get serious about 
reaching an agreement. I think that it is possible.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the distinguished acting majority leader, and 
particularly for his invaluable service as a liaison with the House on 
this, in bringing to bear his experience there as whip. I hope tomorrow 
we can make further progress on this matter. I thank the leader.
  Mr. President, I anticipate the order in process will now put the 
Senate into recess.

                          ____________________