[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 183 (Friday, November 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13293-H13294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       WHY WILL THE PRESIDENT NOT SIGN THE CONTINUING RESOLUTION?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I would continue my question to the gentleman. 
My question is simple. What makes this complex, to simply cast a 
``yes'' vote, an ``aye'' vote on the CR? It is a clean CR as the 
President asked for, with one sentence. I read that sentence. It is a 
short sentence. It is a benign sentence. It says that the President and 
the Congress will honestly and sincerely work together to come up with, 
that they will be committed to balancing the budget in fiscal year 2002 
under the scoring of CBO.
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, all I am 
saying to him is that I do not think we are that far apart. The problem 
we have is that in a continuing resolution, which is because the work 
was not finished on time, we needed to pass it for a couple of more 
weeks. A lot of things, including that, were added into it, and it 
really was not the proper vehicle.
  We have the reconciliation budget, which we voted on today, which 
really is the proper vehicle. That needs to go through the process, and 
then we should demand that the President, the Speaker, and the majority 
leader negotiate that budget reconciliation and work out those 
differences over that 

[[Page H 13294]]
budget and then come back to the Congress.
  Mr. HOKE. Reclaiming my time, I do not necessarily disagree with the 
gentleman, but you cannot have it both ways, then, and then blame the 
shutdown of the Government on the Republicans because, in fact, it is 
the President's veto that is shutting down the Government. And he has 
vetoed it, he said he has vetoed it, strictly because it has this 7-
year balanced budget language in it.
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, I just want the gentleman to understand, I 
am not blaming anybody for the shutdown. I am blaming all of us. The 
resolution was to keep working together. It was not making any claims 
about the Republicans or the Democrats, but it was stating we should 
work together to get through this.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOKE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, if I could offer my own observation as to 
why we are at this point of stalemate, in all candor, I think the first 
continuing resolution failed because your party chose, for whatever 
reason, to attach issues regarding environmental regulation and Federal 
criminal appeal habeas corpus review, and some other things.
  Mr. HOKE. It had the Medicare Part B premium. I thought that was the 
one the President really hung his hat on.
  Mr. ANDREWS. He did, but the party chose to put veto bait on the 
bill.
   The failure of the second resolution is the fault of our party, 
frankly, because I think the President chose to send a political signal 
to his democratic base that he would not buy into your 7-year number 
because that was an important symbol for his base, so strike one on 
you, strike two on us, so here we are with nothing.
  It just occurs to me that if the five or six of us here at 11:35 
tonight had the power to make this decision, I think we would make a 
decision that would be fair and reasonable and probably get the people 
back to work by Monday. I do not see why we cannot do that.
  Mr. HOKE. Reclaiming my time, I think what you have said is quite 
fair and correct, but I really do think that ultimately it boils down 
to the President not being able to live with a 7-year balanced budget 
and maintain his political base, and that is really what is going on. 
What we are talking about is $800 billion of difference. That, really, 
is finally what it boils down to.
  Mr. ANDREWS. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I 
agree with the gentleman that there is a philosophical divide here that 
has to be dealt with. I think the proper place to deal with that is on 
the debate over the reconciliation bill. I think we ought to have that 
debate while the Government is running.
  Mr. HOKE. Exactly. I totally agree with that.
  Mr. ANDREWS. And we should make that resolution. Between now and 
Monday, and I hope we can for family reasons finish by then, but we 
ought to make it our mission to get that done by Monday, and I think 
the 300 of us who want to see a 7-year balanced budget will win, which 
is as it ought to be.
  Mr. BALDACCI. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I do not think 
the President opposes a balanced budget over that period of time.
  Mr. HOKE. Why do you say that?
  Mr. BALDACCI. Let me just say, I do not think he does. When you start 
adding tax breaks to it----
  Mr. HOKE. That is not in there. It is not in the CR.
  Mr. BALDACCI. You know it is in the budget reconciliation.
  Mr. HOKE. It does not go to the details, it does not say how. It just 
says that we will.
  Mr. BALDACCI. Let me say honestly to you, so we can cut down to the 
chase, when you add the tax breaks to it, even among us, it makes it so 
that you push it so it would have to be 8 years, because you really 
cannot do any more in 7 years and balance the budget and make the cuts. 
We have through it with the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] and 
others, and it cannot be done.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I do not doubt that we 
disagree about these things, profoundly, and that they could be real 
problems. Maybe that means the President will veto this and we will 
never come to an agreement, and we will just have to keep running the 
budget or the Government by a CR, but the fact is that the CR does not 
say that. It does not say how you get there. It just says that you are 
committed to it. The President refused to sign that, or he says he is 
going to veto it. He has made it very clear.

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