[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15621-H15622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    EXPRESSING APPRECIATION FOR CONTINUING RESOLUTION TO ASSIST THE 
                          DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to thank those members 
on both sides of the aisle who helped and cooperated with us as we got 
a continuing resolution that keeps the Capital of the United States 
open. I recognize, particularly because I am among the Members who has 
a very large number of Federal employees, how frustrating a piecemeal 
CR has been.
  On the other hand, it does seem important to get to the real 
principle of the thing and to the real people who are behind all of our 
rhetoric.
  The CR that has just passed still has to go through the Senate, and I 
am informed that there is a difference in language between what they 
have passed and what we have passed, so we are still on tenterhooks.
  This will not be known as the most bipartisan Congress in more than 
200 years. There will be very few matters which can be pointed to which 
received any bipartisanship.
  I must say, I would have been ashamed to have been a part of this 
body, however, if that posturing and partisanship prevailed against the 
most needy people in our society, those on welfare and against the 
Capital of the United States.
  So I am grateful to all involved that this matter passed. I 
appreciate the work of the Speaker, the majority leader, and the 
minority leader on our side. I appreciate the work of the gentleman 
from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Obey].
  If all had not, in fact worked together, I am not sure exactly where 
the District would have been left, but it certainly would have been 
twisting in the wind, and the hardship on people on AFDC would have 
been unspeakable.
  There is still great unfinished business as far as the District of 
Columbia is concerned. We are one of, I think, only a couple of 
appropriations that have not even passed yet.
  The continuing resolution lasts until January 3. Imagine what it 
feels like to have a continuing resolution until January 3 to spend 
your own money. That is the money that is locked up here in 
the continuing resolution, and it gives not 1 cent of Federal money to 
a city that is insolvent, at least technically so, and cash-strapped. 
It is a very small favor that the House has done, but it is a 
lifesaving favor.

  I want to use this occasion at the end of the first year of the 104th 
Congress to ask the Members, come back with more bipartisanship than 
they left.
  The balanced-budget-in-7-years matter, for example, is one that the 
parties have come very close together on, and yet the Government is 
being kept closed tight as if you needed a hammer to get the rest of 
the way. The rest of the way is very small.
  In negotiations, you use hammers only when you are getting nowhere. 
We are getting somewhere, and yet the hammer of keeping Federal 
employees out of work, of keeping them without a paycheck even though 
they have been promised their pay is still there. Imagine, if you had 
to be without your paycheck over the Christmas holiday. There are few 
of us that could afford that.
  So what we did here today was minimalism, but important minimalism. I 
hope it opens the way to a greater sense of what is really at stake 
here, the confidence of the country that the two parties that have 
essentially run this body for 200 years are capable of continuing to do 
it for 200 more.
  When you have been tested on whether or not you will keep your own 
Capital City open, you have allowed your own prestige to be tested. I 
am afraid this will not play very well around the world, but at least 
the headlines will not read, ``The Congress of the United States Closes 
Down Its Own Capital.'' I am grateful that it will not read that and 
hope that the last act of the year, and that is what we have probably 
seen 

[[Page H15622]]
today, the last act of the year, bipartisan act, keeping the District 
open, allowing those on welfare to get their checks, allowing veterans 
to get their checks, that that will be the first, the first indication 
that it is possible to get bipartisanship, and we start on small 
matters.
  Then surely on large matters where we are very close, like the 
balanced budget in 7 years, we can do what needs to be done without 
drawing our swords on one another. We have drawn much blood, 
figuratively speaking, in this Chamber.

                              {time}  1545

  I think in so doing, we may have paved the way for a third party to 
come down this aisle. We have got to restore confidence in this body. I 
hope the last vote of the year does that.

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