[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15271-H15272]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AMERICANS SUPPORT PRESIDENT ON BUDGET IMPASSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Coble). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fattah] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I do not rise as normally when Members ask 
for an opportunity to revise their remarks and extend them. I would 
like my remarks to be recorded as I speak them. In this case, because I 
think that what we need to focus on is the simplest assertion of the 
truth.
  We have a Republican majority that is trying to sell something that 
no one is buying. The American public has rejected, almost 2 to 1, 
their budget proposal for this Nation. They offer us on one hand a 
budget that would cut education, Head Start, Pell Grant opportunities 
for youngsters to go to college, increase the cost of student loans, 
and cut teacher training programs.
  In every poll that has been done, the American public indicates that 
they do not agree with this budget. They are trying to sell a budget to 
the President of the United States, and he has vetoed it. He has said 
that he will not add his signature, he will not join in a conspiracy to 
rob this great country of ours from developing its fullest potential. 
He will not join in attempts to cut millions of young people in terms 
of their needs, in terms of health care and Medicaid, to further burden 
senior citizens and their families when they are in need of nursing 
home care. So, because the Nation and the President have rejected their 
budget product, they have 

[[Page H15272]]
folded their hands and are now stuck in the same position they started 
out in, refusing to compromise, refusing to move toward some shared 
consensus about what direction our budget priorities should be as a 
country.
  The U.S. Constitution is clear, and that is that laws have to be 
passed by the House and the Senate and signed by the President. I am 
not proud of the fact that I have been a Member of the least productive 
Congress in the history of our country in terms of actually passing 
legislation that moves on to the upper Chamber, or the other body, 
depending on how you like to phrase it, and then on to the President 
for his signature.
  What we have here is a group of people who are now in the majority 
that seems to lack the maturity to be productive participants in 
shaping the course of public policy in our land. So, because their 
budget product has been rejected by the American people, they have 
decided to hold hostage 75 percent of the U.S. Government domestic 
programs.
  So we come now on the eve of a holiday season, and many of my 
colleagues have pleaded for sympathy for Federal workers. I really 
would hope that we would understand their plight, but I think it is 
even more a compelling case to feel sympathy for the misguided 
priorities of the Republican majority. This is a defining moment I 
believe in this Congress. This shows clearly that they do not have what 
it takes in terms of being able to govern the people's house, to be 
responsible and reasonable in their actions.
  So I would ask that as we reflect upon this moment in time, that we 
would think clearly about the opportunities that the new year will 
bring; for the American public to think anew about what type of person 
they would like to have in the U.S. Congress; to think anew about how 
we can further develop a more perfect union; to think anew about our 
responsibilities, as so eloquently outlined in the Declaration of 
Independence and the U.S. Constitution, in the preamble where it says 
to promote the general welfare, being our essential priority.
  We have a lot to be thankful for in this land, and one of the things 
we have to be thankful for is that there is an election for Congress 
every 2 years, and that we will arrive at a point in which the American 
public will hold the trump card, and they will have an opportunity to 
make choices about what kind of country we really want to be and what 
kind of Nation we really want to move toward.
  I would challenge each of us as we continue our work in this body to 
try to be more reasonable, to try to accommodate the differences of 
opinion that truly exist in terms of how to move our country forward, 
but always to be prepared, even in a moment in which we lack some 
degree of comfort, to stand firm for what we believe in, to stand up 
for our principles, and for the democratic majority and for a President 
who has struggled to try to reason with an unreasonable majority of the 
Congress. I think we owe President Clinton a great degree of gratitude 
for his leadership for our Nation in our hour of need.

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