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




                              {time}  2230
                     WE SHOULD STAY AND DO OUR WORK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, is as obvious, I think, to all of us in 
this House and has been for the 10 months that I have been here, as 
have many of my colleagues who are on the floor tonight, we disagree, 
and reasonable people often disagree. But I think there is one thing 
that we cannot disagree upon and one thing that the American people 
will not disagree with, and that is simply that we should stay and do 
our work.
  The fact of the matter is that we are still getting paid when a lot 
of people are not getting paid, and the fact of the matter is that we 
get paid a lot as compared to the majority of the American people, and 
I think the American people want action, not talk, and most of all I 
think the American people would rather see us stay in Washington and 
try and work out our differences on this budget, get us to a balanced 
budget, rather than adjourn and go home. That is what we get paid to 
do, and we ought to stay and do it.
  Now tonight I join with my colleague, the gentleman from the great 
State of Maine [Mr. Baldacci], and my other colleagues in the freshman 
Democrat class to introduce a resolution which will say that we will 
stay in session until we get this issue resolved.
  Now we can talk about the issues of clean CR's, and time frames, and 
CBO, and OMB, and all other acronyms which make Washington tick, but 
the fact of the matter is that they are all irrelevant unless we are 
willing to sit here, work out our differences and get on with our 
business. To basically take our bat and ball and go home because we are 
mad and not do our work puts us in about the same league as major 
league baseball players who were out making $4 million or $5 million a 
year and decided they did not want to play baseball because they are 
not making enough money. American people feel we make too much money, 
and sometimes I think they are right, if we are to willing to sit down, 
try and find common ground and address these issues.
  Mr. Speaker, we can all dig in our heels, we can all say we will not 
give an inch, but that is not what we were sent here to do, that is not 
what this democracy is all about.
  Now I will tell my colleagues that I think that, if we decide to 
leave, without finishing our business, we will have a lot to pay, and 
quite frankly it will be deserved, so I think our colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle would be well served to join with us and join with 
us in this resolution. Let us tell the leadership, let us tell the 
Speaker, that we wish to stay.

  Now let me, let me just make a couple of points of clarification 
since I have been sitting on this floor listening to my good friends 
from all over the country, and I want to make two points that I think 
the gentleman from Kansas spoke with earlier. He made the point about 
the Speaker's airplane problems, and I just want to make a point to 
remind him, and the way that I read it in all of the newspapers, was 
that it was the Speaker who brought up the issue of the airplane and 
why as a result of his personal offense that he took he decided to make 
the CR harder so it would not pass. In fact I heard a tape of that last 
night on the nightly news. It was the Speaker who said I am just doing 
this for point of clarification.
  Let me also make another point to my colleagues because this is 
something that I just have an interest in. When we talk about interest 
rates, and he was talking about Chairman Greenspan of the Federal 
Reserve, an unelected position, but certainly an expert in the area of 
macroeconomics, he talks about lowering interest rates, but I might 
point out that when the Congress threatened to default for the first 
time in our history as a Nation to destroy our creditworthiness, 
interest rates actually went up because the market reacted to that. 
This goes to say any time you play around with the creditworthiness of 
a nation, you will pay more in interest rates.
  So that brings me back to where we are. Let us sit down at the table, 
and let us get our work done. Let us not go home. Let us not go home 
because we are mad. We get paid to work. Other people are not getting 
paid, and let us get to work. So I ask my colleagues to join me in the 
resolution.

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