[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 183 (Friday, November 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13285-H13286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             BUDGET IMPASSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maine [Mr. Longley] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LONGLEY. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me to listen to the 
discussion on the floor this evening, particularly the suggestion that 
we might work over the weekend to do something, I am not quite sure. I 
have to confess that this is day 4 of the President's decision to shut 
down the Federal Government. But I would emphasize that it is the 
President's decision. Basically, I want to try to simplify things for 
Members to understand exactly what the issues are that we are now 
confronting.
  Last Wednesday was a defining moment. It was a defining moment for 
the administration and it was a defining moment for the Congress. It 
was a defining moment for the administration because finally the 
administration made it clear that they are not in support of a balanced 
budget, period. And it was a defining moment for the Congress because 
277 Members, including 48 Democrats, made it clear that we were in fact 
in favor of a balanced budget along the lines of the 7-year time frame.
  For those who might be confused about exactly what is happening, 
Wednesday, when the President indicated that he was going to veto a 
clean continuing resolution, I realize that is Washington talk, what a 
clean continuing resolution means is a clean continuing resolution.
  What is a continuing resolution? It is a resolution of the Congress 
that will allow spending to continue until early December. It had one 
requirement built into the resolution, that was that if the President 
accepted the agreement that he would in effect work with us to achieve 
a balanced Federal budget over the next 7 years.
  There was no other requirement in that resolution. There were no tax 
cuts in that resolution. There were no adjustments in Medicare spending 
or Medicaid or any one of the hundreds of programs that we have worked 
our way through over the last 6 or 10 months. It was a clean continuing 
resolution; that is, it was unornamented. There was nothing complex 
about it.
  We gave the President the opportunity to continue the operations of 

[[Page H 13286]]
  Government just based on one caveat; that was that we are going to 
balance the Federal budget.
  Today we did something.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. LONGLEY. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, did the sentence requiring a balanced budget 
by the year 2002, did it say anything about tax cuts?
  Mr. LONGLEY. It said nothing about tax cuts. It said nothing about 
spending cuts. All it said was that we, the Congress of the United 
States, will work with the administration to develop a balanced Federal 
budget, scored by the Congressional Budget Office over the next 7 
years.
  Mr. HOKE. So when you clear it all away, it boils down to the 
President very clearly saying, I will not balance the budget in 7 
years?
  Mr. LONGLEY. That is exactly the issue.
  We have also got a second item.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, now that the gentleman has reached the 
point in his presentation where he is taking questions, will the 
gentleman yield?
  Mr. LONGLEY. Mr. Speaker, I will yield for a question to the 
gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, why has not the continuing resolution, if 
the gentleman is so eager for the President to act on it, why is he 
holding it up?
  Mr. LONGLEY. Reclaiming my time, I think that the President's 
indication that he was going to veto it before it was even passed 
resulted in it going through the Senate and it has been passed 
yesterday, I am advised by the Senate. I am sure that by tonight or 
tomorrow, it will be working its way on to the White House.
  But at the same time, we have now added a second act of legislation 
that will be finalized by the House tomorrow morning, which is that, 
and remember what I said, that Wednesday we are giving the President, 
we voted on a clean continuing resolution. No ifs, ands, or buts, just 
we are going to agree to balance the budget. No adjustments in 
spending, no cuts, nothing.
  Tomorrow morning we are going to vote on a budget, a 7-year budget. 
So we are going to give the President two choices. If he wants to work 
with us to develop a balanced Federal budget over the next 7 years, we 
are going to start from scratch. But by the same token, if he wants us 
to do the heavy lifting, we have already done it, worked our way 
through the budget, and we have come up with a package that we think is 
pretty strong. So he has got plan A and plan B. So as far as the work 
that needs to be done in this House, I might also add that the 
President's decision on Wednesday to indicate that he had no intention 
whatsoever of balancing the Federal budget has also thrown us into a 
little bit of a quandary, because if the President is going to 
interfere with what we thought was his objective, which we thought was 
the objective of all Members of this Chamber to work toward a balanced 
Federal budget, and he has decided not to do that, well then now we 
have got to go through more programs and more adjustments and deal with 
the appropriations knowing they are going to be vetoed.

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