[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H10]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REPUBLICANS READY TO PASS A BALANCED BUDGET

  (Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, to hear the rhetoric in this debate one 
would think that most of the Government is shut down. That is not true. 
Most of the Government is up and running.
  It is about one-fifth of the Government that is not open for business 
today. And most of that one-fifth could be open for business today if 
the President had simply signed 3 appropriations bills the House and 
the Senate, representing a majority of the American people, sent to him 
in time for him to put his signature on it and to put these people to 
work. The President chose not to sign those bills and so most of that 
one-fifth of the work force is out of work today. As to that remaining 
number, they are tied up in a filibuster on the Senate side led by 
Members of the President's own party.
  So if you want to know why part of the Government is shut down today, 
it is because the President failed to sign the appropriation bills the 
House and Senate agreed upon, and because his own party has the final 
remaining appropriation bills tied up in the Senate in a filibuster. We 
are ready to go to work, pass a balanced budget bill for this country 
and get us on a course to fiscal sanity again.

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