[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H15268]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                BALANCED DEBATE GOOD FOR BALANCED BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ewing] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EWING. Mr. Speaker, I come here to this floor to add a little 
balance to the debate. The rhetoric that you have heard from the other 
side of the aisle, I think has been very strong, many times stretching 
the believability of almost anyone who would be listening. I think the 
American people can see through this debate.
  The last speaker, my good colleague from Missouri, has a selective 
memory. His selective memory forgot about the Carter administration and 
double-digit inflation, unemployment, and interest rates. He can go 
back only a little ways, and of course I would have to defend Ronald 
Reagan, who had a very liberal, a very spending Congress who certainly 
never helped to balance the budget.
  The time has come to try and balance the budget. We know we have a 
tough job to do it even in 7 years. But this party, the Republican 
Party in this Congress is dedicated to doing that.
  I want to talk about the shutdown. We have heard some very, very 
strong words about the shutdown and revolution. Well, many people back 
in the country do not realize any of Government is shut down, and the 
part that is shut down, if we look at it, we might say, those employees 
have the best of all worlds. They will probably get paid and have the 
week off before Christmas. I do not think that is so mean-spirited to 
those employees.
  Then we have to look at why we have even a partial shutdown of 
Government. Well, most of it is because the President vetoed the 
spending bills that we sent to him. He did not like those; they were 
not spending enough. Very basically, the disagreement between the 
President's budget and Congress' budget is that we want to spend $3 
trillion less over the next 7 years.
  We are going to spend more on every program of importance to this 
country for environment, for education, for senior citizens, for health 
care, more money, in many cases, a high percentage of increase in the 
spending.
  Why have we not reached a budget then? Why have we not reached an 
agreement? Well, the White House is too interested in talking about 
talking. They do not want to talk about anything specific; they only 
want to talk about how we are going to talk about the specifics if and 
when we can get to the specifics if the President is in town and if it 
can be done, and it is on and on like that; and then the President 
makes an agreement with the leadership, and before they can get back to 
the Capitol, he sends the Vice President out and reneges on every 
agreement.
  The American people are surprised, I think, about all this talking 
and no action. They want something to happen, and so does this caucus. 
And that is why the Republicans have said, no more temporary spending, 
Mr. President. Come to the table. The budget could be put together 
before Christmas.
  There is only one viable document on the table, and that is the 
Republican version that we have worked on for months; no one else has 
one that is so complete, and changes can be made in that. Within 2 days 
the President and the leadership of this Congress, if they would stay 
at it continuously, would have a budget and we would be on the road to 
balancing the budget; we would be on the road to funding social 
programs in this country, yes, at a higher level, and we would be on 
the road to a balanced budget.

                              {time}  1615

  I do not think that we could give the American people a better 
Christmas present, if we would put away the cruel, mean-spirited, yes, 
the rhetoric from the other side, and sit down and start talking about 
the issues. We are here, we are ready to do that. We will stay ready to 
do that right through the holiday if necessary, so that we can 
accomplish what is good for America, and to it at this time of good 
will, this Christmastime when we all should be thinking not only of our 
families but what we can do for our neighbors and everyone in our 
society.

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