[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 206 (Thursday, December 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15552-H15553]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            REPUBLICANS VOTE TO GO HOME IN FACE OF SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, this has been a strange day, and these are 
strange times. We have my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, 
the Republicans, who claim they have kept us here because they want to 
negotiate. They have literally caused people to change their plans, 
change their lives, caused so much uncertainty with the families they 
claim to care about.
  Do not forget, these are the family values people. These are the 
folks who say they know more about family values than most of us. But 
yet when they had an opportunity to be sensible, to be credible, to 
make sure that we operate in a way that respects our families, they 
have done some strange things.
  After all of this, when they had an opportunity to negotiate, the 
President called them up, met with them, and their leader, Newt 
Gingrich, went back to them and said, ``We have an agreement. We can 
get a continuing resolution to keep Government open.''
  Mind you, Government is not really operating. We do not have the 
authority. We have a lot of Federal employees that have been told to go 
home. This is Christmastime. They do not know what is happening. They 
do not know when they are going to be returned. We have parks that are 
closed down. We have people who cannot get passports.
  Then my friends on the other side of the aisle got cute and they 
decided, ``Oh, let's strike a blow for veterans. That's a great 
constituency. They vote. When we say we're doing something for 
veterans, we really look good. These are the person who have defended 
our 

[[Page H15553]]
country, so if we go on the floor and we make sure we said they should 
get paid, it's going to make us look good with the American public.''
  And so we did that. In all of this, we failed to negotiate, we don't 
have a continuing resolution for everybody, but we struck this little 
blow for veterans.
  And after Newt Gingrich went to them and said they could have a deal 
with the President to have a continuing resolution, they said, ``No, we 
don't want to do it. We don't care what you say, Newt Gingrich.'' The 
new Members, the freshmen, said, ``No, we don't want a deal.''
  After not having a deal, they said the reason they did not want to do 
it is because the President had not committed to a 7-year balanced 
budget, nor did he want to accept the Congressional Budget Office 
projections and their understanding of how the economy would be working 
over the next 7 years. That is what they said.
  Well, that has been cleared up, so you would think they would have 
negotiated today. But no, they have not done that. They took a vote, 
led by the Republicans on the other side of the aisle, to just go home. 
Just go home. Go home to their families, to our families.
  And, yes, most of us would like to do that. But what about the 
Federal employees and the others that do not know what is going to 
happen to them? We could have passed a continuing resolution. They did 
something strange called a recess, an adjournment that is called a 
recess, and they kind of said, ``and we have the opportunity to call 
you back at some given point in time.''
  And so this adjournment fashioned as a recess has taken place. But 
before they left, a lot of damage was done. A lot of damage was done 
because we passed out a conference report on welfare.
  This conference report on welfare basically cuts about $60 billion 
out of welfare and, oh, that is easy to do, because welfare has become 
kind of the political football of politics. If you get up and rant and 
rave against worthless people who are getting the taxpayers' dollars, 
oh, you can get some votes. You can get some votes, and you can have 
people believe that somehow you are protecting the taxpayers.
  It is easy to beat up on children. It is easy to beat up on poor 
people.
  ``They don't have any power. They can't do anything. And I can get 
get some votes.''
  Well, they struck a blow against the children, $60 billion in cuts. 
Oh, they took the safety net from under the children. You should see 
the havoc that was wreaked upon these children and their families, 
because protective services will be hurt.

                              {time}  1845

  A lot of things will be done to children that I do not think any of 
us can be proud of. So I stand here this evening to say, it is shameful 
what has taken place over the last few days. None of us should be proud 
of it. None of us should want to go home and face our constituents or 
our families because it is not honorable what we have done here.

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