[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 186 (Monday, November 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H13348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PUTTING OUR HOUSE IN ORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Funderburk] is 
recognized during morning business for 3 minutes.
  Mr. FUNDERBURK. Mr. Speaker, what if an unpopular President shut the 
Federal Government down and no body outside the Capitol beltway, except 
CBS, NBC, and the New York Times cared one whit? Judging by what the 
people of eastern North Carolina told me, that's exactly what happened 
last week. So let me cut through the fog that engulfed the White House 
and its bagmen in the media and tell you what this fight is really 
about.
  The shut down of the Federal Government was not about petty partisan 
politics. This fight was and is about our children and our future. It 
is about two competing visions of America. The first vision is Bill 
Clinton's America where an army of Federal bureaucrats tells us how to 
raise our families, spend our money, and run our businesses. The second 
is our America; and America built on the promise of individual liberty 
and material progress.
  The new majority was sent to Congress by Americans frightened of 
Government and exhausted by its ravenous demands. We were sent here to 
bring runaway Federal spending to a standstill. We hammered out a 
budget plan to balance the books, chop the arms off the Federal 
octopus, and let the people keep their money.
  Bill Clinton's opposition to the Republican budget tells America 
three things:
  Bill Clinton did not want a balanced budget.
  Bill Clinton was never serious about carrying through on his campaign 
pledge to cut middle-class tax rates.
  Bill Clinton is an old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal who genuinely 
opposes any reduction in Government spending.
  We have had 800,000 Federal workers on furlough. Can the liberals 
continue to argue that these Federal workers and the thousands of idle 
programs they administer are critical to the health and safety of our 
country? Bill Clinton's own administration determined 67 percent of the 
employees at the Department of Commerce, 89 percent at Education, and 
99 percent at HUD are nonessential. But Bill Clinton has done 
everything in his power to keep us from closing these and countless 
other Federal departments. So much for Bill Clinton, the new Democrat.
  Americans don't miss these programs on Federal holidays and they 
certainly don't miss them today. For all of Bill Clinton's talk about 
the hazards of shutting down Washington, DC, most of these programs 
didn't exist prior to 1965 and America prospered for 190 years without 
them. By a margin of 10 to 1, my constituents in the second district of 
North Carolina said keep the nonessential parts of Government closed 
down and out of our lives.
  Mr. Speaker, there was much more to this debate than furloughed 
Federal workers. Time is running out for our children. We are about to 
enter a new century on a collision course with catastrophe. If you add 
up all of the Federal entitlements, at their current growth rates and 
add the inevitable increase in the national debt, what you have in 20 
years is a financial disaster of unimaginable magnitude. Entitlements 
plus our Federal debt will consume every last penny of Federal tax 
revenues. As it stands now, in 20 years our children and grandchildren 
will have half of their paychecks taken by Uncle Sam just to pay for 
entitlements alone. There will be nothing left for defense, law 
enforcement, foreign affairs, or agriculture, absolutely nothing.
  Mr. Speaker, we are about to drive America off the cliff. For the 
sake of future generations we must put our house in order now. It's 
good to get a pledge from the President to agree to a balanced budget 
in 7 years. But that can't and won't take place without real reform of 
welfare, Medicare, education, the legal system, and workplace and 
environmental regulation.
  We've won the balanced budget debate. Now we have to win the details 
and make sure that the left does not continue big Government business 
as usual. Our children's future depends on it.

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