[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15281-H15282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LET THE LEADERS LEAD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. White). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Kennelly] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. KENNELLY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to come down here on the floor and 
say that all week I have stayed away from the floor. I felt that there 
was really nothing that could be said at this point in time, that the 
American people mostly, those that are fortunate enough to be with 
their families and about to enjoy a holiday with shopping and getting 
ready for Christmas and trying to have a family occasion where there 
could be happiness and good cheer, that they probably thought that we 
in Washington, Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, 
that we could not get our job done.
  They pay us well, they send us to Washington to represent them, and 
they would like us to carry out our duties. Yet we hear this more or 
less ``blame game.'' I do not think that is going on in the country. I 
think they are saying, all of us are not doing our job.
  I reached a point of frustration this afternoon, listening to the 
conversation on the floor, because things get mixed, what is happening 
here. We have appropriation bills that are passed on this floor and on 
the floor of the Senate that go to the President and are signed, and 
those bills fund, through taxpayers' money, the various agencies of the 
U.S. Government. Six of these bills have not been finished.
  That has happened in other years, and then we have what is called a 
continuing resolution. It comes to both floors and is passed, and then 
the problems within the different bills are hammered out and worked 
out, and then eventually we have an appropriations bill. Of course, 
that is not what happened 2 weeks ago and that is not what is happening 
now.
  The continuing resolution does not pass and, therefore, those 
agencies stop, and the result is that 200,000 people cannot go to work.
  I do not understand it. This is not the budget. The budget is another 
whole process. The budget, there are a lot of differences, differences 
about values, differences about priorities, differences about the 
budget of the United States of America and about the size of the 
Federal Government. That is all in the budget.
  But the continuing resolution is different, and I do not see why we 
hold the continuing resolution hostage to the budget.
  We as Members of Congress are fortunate. We have an office down here 
and at home. In that office, I think each and every one of us works 
very hard on casework, and yet we are saying to 200,000 Federal 
workers, we are not letting you go to work. I just think that goes 
against everything I have ever worked for.
  We are saying to people who want to go to work at the Smithsonian and 
other museums and our art galleries, at our monuments that we are so 
proud of, at our parks that are so beautiful, no, you cannot go. Yet, 
as Members of Congress, we work very hard so that people who want to 
come to Washington can get their tickets, can go to the Washington 
Monument and the Mint, yet we have closed all of these. It is beyond 
me.
  So I would just like to say tonight, can we not pass a continuing 
resolution, open up the Government to the people who pay for it, the 
citizens of the United States of America, and not hold it hostage to 
the budget of the 

[[Page H15282]]
Federal Government which has different philosophical thinking and 
priorities. I just do not understand why we do not respect our Federal 
worker more.

  Some of us have traveled in other countries; we have read about other 
countries, we have dealt with other countries, and we know that their 
federal governments, their government workers are not respected to the 
extent they should be because they have not been treated correctly. 
They work at a lower rate of pay, they do not get the respect that they 
deserve over the years, and as a result, they do not function like our 
Federal Government has always functioned and its workers.
  Our workers are proud of what they do, they go to work in the 
morning, they do a full day's work, they go home at night, they are 
with their families and they are very, very good citizens. They should 
not be put in the vise of this budget resolution.
  Tomorrow we should have a continuing resolution on this floor and on 
the Senate floor, and our Government should go on.
  Then I hear people saying, well, what is happening about the budget; 
and it is said, you know, that there is a group that does not want the 
budget, the new freshman class, they are saying, no, you cannot have 
this particular budget unless it has what we want in it. you cannot do 
it that way.
  First I heard a young man down here talking tonight and he was 
talking about the President of the United States, the President, 
another President, a former President saying, ``The buck stops here.'' 
We did have a former President that said that. But they are not letting 
the buck stop here with this President.
  Yesterday we had the President of the Senate, Mr. Dole, and the 
speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich, go to the White House. All of the 
television cameras were on, and the two gentleman walked in and sat 
down with the President and they began some discussion; they came out, 
and it looked like we were going to have some progress, and we all felt 
so good.
  Yet today we hear that, no, the 73 freshmen are not exactly satisfied 
with what happened there.
  Well, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have it: ``The buck 
stops here,'' and the: ``We want to all be involved.'' The 
negotiations, any negotiations, breaking it down to a smaller group 
with only the leaders. In Dayton, they sent the Presidents of those 
countries and they sat down at the table and they figured out what was 
going on. They could not bring all of the countries with them.
  So what I am saying is why do we not all step our of the way and 
decide what is happening and come back and vote on it. Let us let the 
leaders lead.

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