[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 192 (Tuesday, December 5, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H13935]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FREE THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, we are 11 days before another possible 
shutdown of the Federal and the District Government and I am forced to 
come to the floor of the House every day trying to keep this from 
happening, at least in the District. I recognize now that there will 
probably be at least a short-term CR, so that 10 days before Christmas 
there is not a Federal Government shutdown, but I hope to impress upon 
my colleagues that a short-term CR will not help the District much 
because it is a city and not a Federal agency.
  As we saw from the starts and stops of preparing for the last 
shutdown, it does not help a city to give it a short-term CR. I ask my 
colleagues to put themselves in the position of my constituents, who 
have paid their taxes, who are second per capita in Federal taxes in 
the United States, and their money is up here in the appropriations. 
Eighty percent of it is their money, and there is the possibility that 
the Congress would shut down on their money, or put them on a CR on 
their money.
  Tomorrow, the gentleman from Virginia, Chairman Tom Davis, has agreed 
to a hearing on a bill that would allow the District to spend its own 
money in the case of government shutdowns, remembering that we are not 
HUD or HHS--we are a city, like the cities my colleagues represent. We 
are caught in the middle of someone else's fight. The District is in 
grave financial stress. It is important to let us out so that we can 
continue to rebuild this city.
  Mr. Speaker, this morning's Washington Times reports some distressing 
news, and I am quoting. ``A paralyzing dispute over school vouchers has 
so divided Republicans that some are concerned the District will not 
receive an annual spending bill for the first time since the advent of 
home rule.''
  I say to my GOP colleagues who are in charge now, every year for 40 
years that the Democrats were in charge, they got 13 appropriations 
out. It is now the GOP's responsibility to get 13 appropriations out, 
including the District's. Instead, what we have brewing is a major 
constitutional fight on the back of the weakest of the 13 
appropriations, the smallest of the 13 appropriations--the D.C. 
appropriations.
  I ask my colleagues, is it fair to hold up our appropriation over a 
fight, a constitutional fight, over vouchers for private and religious 
schools? This is a worthy question, but it deserves a hearing. It 
deserves exposure, major exposure, if my colleagues mean to depart from 
200 years of American history.
  Instead, we are told, again in the Washington Times this morning, 
that the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Jeffords] currently holds the 
votes to bury any voucher program under a filibuster. Imagine 
filibustering our appropriation over matters that have nothing to do 
with the District. This proposal on vouchers and on educational reform 
was meant to help us. It is hurting us now very much. Get it off our 
backs.
  If the GOP wants to do this, if they want to help us, let them do it 
the right way and not hold up money that the District needs desperately 
simply to run the city. We already have an agreement on the amount of 
our appropriation. It involves a cut, by the way. So everything is in 
order except an extraneous issue involving vouchers.
  There is also an abortion issue. But the issue that is really holding 
our money up, threatening to shut the city down, threatening to put us 
on short-term continuing resolutions, is not an issue affecting the 
600,000 people I represent. They deserve better. They deserve a whole 
lot better.
  According to the Washington Times, Mr. Speaker, ``Longtime observers 
and those involved in the process say negotiating a District spending 
bill is often tough, but the House and the Senate have always worked 
out their differences in one sitting.'' We are having the third sitting 
today and we are nowhere near to a solution on whether or not 600,000 
people, many of them the hardest working people one could ever find, 
will get their own money out of the Congress.
  Our money should not be up here in the first place. There was a whole 
revolution over charging people taxes without allowing them to have a 
say in how to spend their own money. The 80 percent I am talking about 
was raised in the District of Columbia from District taxpayers. Most 
Americans do not know that. My constituents know it. They are tired of 
being held up here over the fight between the executive and the 
Congress of the United States. They understand that to be a worthy 
fight that has to be fought out, but surely no one believes that we 
should be punished by disallowing us the flexibility to spend our own 
money.
  Mr. Speaker, there are over-obligation prospects out there because if 
we are given a 1-month CR, there are mandates such as AFDC. There are 
mandates such as payroll. We cannot guarantee we will get through those 
mandates. Free the District appropriation.

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