[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 211 (Friday, December 29, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19301-S19302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. DOLE. I thank the Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. President, the time for the two leaders has been reserved, and 
there will be a period for morning business until 12:30 p.m., with 
Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each. I do not 
anticipate any rollcall votes today.
  I am going to make a request, but I know it is going to be objected 
to. I hope we can revisit it later this afternoon because most of us 
would like to see everybody back to work. A week ago today, we passed 
in the Senate by unanimous consent a proposal to deem all Government 
employees essential so they can go back to work and not be in violation 
of anything, and also provided for pay for those Federal employees.
  So it is my hope that we do not have to wait until next week to 
resolve this. It is my understanding that we may be in session 
throughout the afternoon subject to the call of the Chair in the event 
the House should take some action on the measure we passed last week.
  Yesterday, in an effort to at least get some people back to work, the 
Speaker and I wrote a letter to the President of the United States. It 
was not intended to be critical. There is nothing critical in it, 
because we are in the midst of budget negotiations, and we agreed not 
to discuss the budget negotiations. But it was our thought perhaps if 
we passed Interior, and State, Justice, Commerce, and HUD-VA, that 
would put a lot of people back to work. There are some things the 
President does not like in those bills. We can resolve those 
differences in the budget agreement. He can sign the bill and we would 
not need a CR to cover most of the employees not working now.

  Then we have the Labor-HHS bill we have been unable to bring up 
because of objection on the other side of the aisle. We have had two 
cloture votes and lost on party-line votes.
  That leaves the D.C. appropriations bill. There is a continuing 
resolution for the District government until January 3. And then that 
leaves the foreign ops bill, which we still hope to resolve. I know the 
Senator from Vermont has been directly involved in 

[[Page S19302]]
that, along with the Senator from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, and 
others. It is still our hope maybe we can resolve that today if 
possible.
  I guess the point I want to make is, there is a 3:15 p.m. meeting at 
the White House with budget negotiators. I will certainly update the 
Senate as to the progress following that meeting. What we have agreed 
to do after each meeting is issue a joint statement so it will not 
upset anybody and somehow get it off track.
  It is my view that the American people want us to reach an agreement 
on a balanced budget regardless of party, and I am talking about people 
outside the Capitol, people out in the real world, like some would say. 
I have had an opportunity to meet with some of those people in North 
Carolina and Iowa in the past week. I think they want us to do this for 
the right reason, not that it is a game, or not that it is Republicans 
versus Democrats, but that it would, if we could get a balanced budget 
agreement, if the President was on board and it did pass the Congress, 
then we believe, based on experts, that interest rates would drop 2 
percent, for example. That is 2 percent on a college loan, 2 percent on 
a car loan, 2 percent on a farm loan or home loan, and that would be in 
the interest of all Americans, certainly regardless of party or 
regardless of philosophy.
  So that is why I think there is a good-faith effort on the part of 
the President and on the part of the leadership, Republican and 
Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, and we will proceed this 
afternoon at 3:15. We are prepared to stay through the weekend, if 
necessary. Sooner or later we have to reach out and make some of the 
tough decisions on Medicare and taxes, but, in my view, if we are 
serious about this, we can do it, or if we cannot reach an agreement, 
we ought to disagree and Congress can do what Congress feels must be 
done and the President can do what the President thinks must be done.
  Having said that, I will also advise my colleagues hopefully in the 
next couple of hours what I anticipate the program to be for next week. 
We do start a new session of Congress on Wednesday of next week. I 
guess we have been in like this before a couple of times.
  I am advised we would come in at 11:55 next Wednesday, adjourn sine 
die, and then at noon, 5 minutes later, start the new session. But I 
will give all the other details. I am not certain how many of my 
colleagues will be present at that time.

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