[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 214 (Tuesday, January 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19326-S19327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A CLEAN CONTINUING RESOLUTION

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise to make once again a very strong 
plea for a clean continuing resolution in order to allow the Federal 
employees to go back to work and for the Government to function while 
the negotiations continue over a 7-year budget plan.
  The shutdown of the Government ought not to be used as a coercive 
tactic in order to reach a particular solution with respect to the 7-
year budget plan. Unfortunately, that is what has happened.
  The employees are being used as pawns in this game, in this tragic 
game. And what is happening now is that you have over 500,000 employees 
who have been going into their offices and working, but who are not 
being paid for the period since December 16. You have another 260,000 
employees who have been furloughed. So you have a total of almost 
800,000 employees not being paid for doing their jobs.
  Of course, their inability to do their jobs affects citizens all 
across the country. There is an impact upon the private sector and upon 
millions of citizens. The NIH, which should be processing its grants to 
the private researchers, is not able to do so because people are on 
furlough. A number of States are slowing down the operation of their 
safety and health programs and their unemployment insurance programs 
because of the partial closedown in the Federal Government. You have a 
number of agencies that are not providing very needed services--the 
passport office, for example. A lot of people get passports for 
business reasons. Others have planned trips for long periods of time. 
All of a sudden, none of them can carry through on their plans often at 
great expense and inconvenience.
  The impact of this partial closedown on the Federal Government is 
disrupting the lives of millions of people, not only the Federal 
employees, but ordinary citizens who depend upon the Federal employees 
to provide them with important services.

  There are strong differences about the basic 7-year plan. Those 
differences 

[[Page S19327]]
ought to be fought out. But the employees in the Government ought not 
to be taken hostage as a coercive tactic in that debate, in that sharp 
difference over what the budget priorities ought to be. We have 
discussed those differences at length on the floor of the Senate, and I 
assume further discussions are going on, about the deep cuts in 
Medicare services, and in Medicaid services versus tax breaks for 
people at the top end of the economic scale. But we ought not to be 
holding hostage Federal employees to that debate.
  This week, people will receive paychecks that pay them for only 1 
week, up until the 16th of December, when the last continuing 
resolution expired. Instead of a 2-week paycheck, they are going to get 
a 1-week paycheck. They will not get the second week because that was 
beyond the time of the continuing resolution, although over 500,000 of 
these employees were brought in to work. Although these employees were 
brought in to work, over half a million of them--and another 260,000 
who have been furloughed find themselves in the same situation--they 
will get the 1-week paycheck, not beyond that. Then, after this week, 
unless the Congress takes action, they are not going to get paid.
  It is said that we are going to pass a provision which later, when we 
get a budget and an appropriation, will go back and pay these people. 
That is only decent and humane and just, it certainly should be done. 
But what are these workers to do in the meantime? There seems to be an 
assumption on the part of many Members of the Congress--maybe it 
reflects their own particular financial situation--an assumption that 
people somehow have money stashed away that they can simply draw down 
on. So when the paycheck does not come in, it does not make any 
difference in their standard of living.
  That is not true for a great many people. Most people need a regular 
paycheck in order to make car payments, house payments, tuition 
payments--to meet their ordinary living expenses. This is particularly 
true of people at the lower and middle grades, but it applies 
throughout the Federal service.
  What is being done to dedicated employees is an absolute outrage. It 
defies all reason and all common sense. There is no way, rationally, 
one can justify what is now happening and it clearly flouts common 
sense.
  The Washington Post, in a very strong editorial--and I ask unanimous 
consent the editorial be printed in the Record.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SARBANES. The Washington Post editorial said:

       Federal employees have every right to feel as if they are 
     the real pawns in this sorry mess. One day they are proud and 
     productive members of the Federal Government, protecting the 
     health and safety of the Nation; the next, they are handed a 
     slip of paper and sent home with no idea when they will be 
     paid. That is no way to motivate a work force, let alone 
     demonstrate respect for it.

  Let us pass a clean continuing resolution. Let the people go back to 
work. Let the Government function. And then let the debate over the 
broader budget, the 7-year budget plan, continue without this coercive 
effort to use the Federal employees as a pawn in that debate.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Washington Post, Dec. 17, 1995]

                        A Shutdown's Other Costs

       There is more to the stalemate of the government than the 
     failure of the president and the GOP to agree on a seven-year 
     balanced-budget plan. The furloughing of federal employees 
     exacts a terrible cost from a valuable work force. Nothing 
     can be more demoralizing to men and women who look out for 
     the nation's veterans, hunt for the cures to deadly diseases, 
     keep our air and water clean, send out the Social Security 
     checks and otherwise serve the nation in ways most of us 
     don't think about, than to be told that despite their 
     fidelity and contribution, they are really ``nonessential.'' 
     That insult, being added to all the other guff federal 
     workers catch in the halls of Congress, on talk shows and 
     from television comics, comes as an undeserved kick in the 
     teeth from their own government.
       Federal employees have every right to feel as if they are 
     the real pawns in this sorry mess. One day they are proud and 
     productive members of the federal government, protecting the 
     health and safety of the nation; the next they are handed a 
     slip of paper and sent home with no idea when they will be 
     paid. That is no way to motivate a work force, let alone 
     demonstrate respect for it.
       The daily payroll cost for the furlough of employees is no 
     small matter--even if employees are paid retroactively for 
     their days out of work. But there are consequences of the 
     cavalier treatment of the federal work force that will be 
     felt long after the government is back in business.
       A government that is in gridlock--worse yet, shuttered--
     does little to bolster a political system already losing the 
     public's confidence. It downright debilitates its own work 
     force. As a furloughed federal economist said during the last 
     interruption, ``Can you imagine a Fortune 500 company 
     operating like this? If they had a dispute between their 
     board of directors and their president, and they sent 
     everybody home?'' And in addition to the effect on morale, 
     can such interruption be supposed to be a help to the work 
     they do?
       In an open letter to federal employees, President Clinton 
     and Vice President Gore signaled their recognition of the 
     shabby treatment afforded the federal work force: ``you 
     remain good people caught in what Churchill called the `worst 
     system of government devised by the wit of man, except for 
     all the others,' '' they wrote. Good people--and they are--
     should not be made to pay for the failures of their leaders. 
     Getting federal employees out of the middle and back on the 
     job is the way to respect them.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.

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