[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 206 (Thursday, December 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H15550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          WHAT HAVE THE GINGRICH REPUBLICANS DONE FOR AMERICA?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, as this year comes to a close the American 
people should be aware of some facts about the new Gingrich-controlled 
mean-spirited radical Republican Congress. The list of achievements of 
this Congress will go down in history as the worst since the beginning 
of this country. What have the Gingrich Republicans done for America? 
Well for one they have closed down the Government twice. No other 
Congress ever achieved that. They have threatened senior citizens with 
reductions in their health care. No other Congress has ever done that. 
They have offered the most wealthy in this country a huge tax break 
while raising taxes of poor working Americans. No other Congress has 
ever done that. They have removed the word compromise from Government. 
No other Congress has ever done that. They have threatened to turn back 
environmental gains over the last 20 years. No other Congress has ever 
done that. They have cut school lunches and food for the poor. No other 
Congress has ever done that. And finally, they have called themselves 
the family-friendly Congress while putting hundreds of thousands of 
Federal workers on furlough at Christmas time. No other Congress has 
ever done that. What a sad record of achievement, but certainly one no 
other Congress has ever had.
  Mr. Speaker, people who knowingly break rules are cheaters. People 
who write the rules and then blatantly break them for their own benefit 
are even worse. The new Gingrich House passed new rules for this House 
last January which limited committee membership to two committees, and 
four subcommittees. Every Democrat in this House is abiding by those 
rules. How about the majority. Twenty-nine members of the majority are 
serving on more than four subcommittees. Nineteen Republicans are 
serving on more than two full committees. You wrote the rules and all 
year you have blatantly broken the rules. Perhaps this Christmas Eve 
you can go home to your families and instead of reading the ``Night 
Before Christmas'' you can instead tell your children how breaking 
rules for their own benefit is good. Be sure and tell them that rules 
are for everyone else not them. Nearly 30 percent of the new Republican 
Members that came here in January are violating the rules, they pushed 
for. So much for honesty and fairness in the House of Representatives 
as controlled by the Gingrich radical Republicans.

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