[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 186 (Monday, November 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17500-S17501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will speak of other Government employees 
now. I strongly support the agreement's commitment to provide back pay 
for the thousands of employees and their families who were forced off 
the job last week through no fault of their own. It was an insult to 
these households held hostage through our inability to agree on a 
workable Government budget for all Americans. I regret that the 
shutdown punished hard-working families, not some faceless bureaucrats 
as some would have you believe.
  I know an awful lot of men and women in Vermont who work very hard at 
keeping the Government of this great country running, from the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service to the Justice Department and 
Agriculture, food service, on and on. These are hard-working people. 
They are the Cal Ripkens of the Government who show up for work every 
single day, do their job, do it the very best they can, and suddenly 
are told they are not essential, we do not believe in what they have 
been doing, and they are sent home through no fault of their own.
  They just want to work. I had so many call my home, call my office, 
and 

[[Page S 17501]]
say: We are ready to come to work. We will volunteer. There are things 
that have to be done. Passports have to be issued; social welfare 
claims have to be heard; and so on. It is the same throughout this 
country.
  Remember these same Government employees who died for this country in 
Oklahoma, these same Government employees who make the greatest 
democracy on Earth operate with a quarter of a billion people. They 
should not become pawns in a budget chess match.

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