[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H55-H56]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THIS IS PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Maryland for 
her comments. I hope that she can rally 19 of her Republican 
colleagues. That is all we need to reopen this Government, and I hope 
that we can vote on that before there is any suggestion that this 
Congress leave for another 3 weeks.
  Another Republican, the gentleman from Virginia, said earlier 
Congress is about to set out on another paid vacation, another 3 weeks 
away from Washington, while this Government is shut down. If it 
happens, and I sincerely hope it does not, I hope that my colleagues, 
particularly my Republican colleagues, who have endorsed this strategy, 
the Gingrich strategy of Government shutdown, will go home and listen 
to what the people on the street have to say about what we are doing.
  This morning I stood at the Jefferson Park CTA stop in the city of 
Chicago for about an hour and a half, and as a thousand people came by, 
I took my poll, and I can tell you people across this country are 
damn disgusted with what is happening here in Washington. They cannot 
countenance how we can allow 280,000 Federal workers to be furloughed 
and three-quarters of a million workers to have their pay in jeopardy.

  You see, they listened to the Gingrich rhetoric about personal 
responsibility, personal responsibility, and yet they see the same 
leaders who are sending Federal workers home unpaid and underpaid, 
taking their full congressional paychecks every single day. They hear 
these pious pronouncements about personal responsibility while Members 
of Congress with full pay go home for a Christmas vacation content in 
the knowledge they will be able to make next month's mortgage payment 
while hundreds of thousands of Federal workers do not have that 
certainty and have a bleak Christmas and holidays as a result of it.
  The gentlewoman from Maryland referred to the National Institutes of 
Health. My brother, who is a retired Federal employee, swims every 
morning with some doctors from the National Institutes of Health. They 
were hopping mad this week because Members of Congress are still 
referring hardship cases to the National Institutes of Health while 
they fail to fund that agency adequately. In other words, we want them 
to continue performing their services, and yet will not make their 
paychecks whole. We will not treat them as an agency of great 
importance, which they are. 

[[Page H56]]

  Personal responsibility, Mr. Gingrich? It is not even close. It is 
arrogance.
  And we also heard this talk about a family-friendly Congress. That is 
a hoot. That is a real hoot for Members here.

                              {time}  1830

  You see Members dropping out in droves because of this schedule and 
the madness that we have gone through for the past year.
  But forget us for a moment. Think about the innocent families that 
are being disadvantaged by this shutdown. Think about those families 
and the impact that they feel. A young woman calls me, a college 
student, had a chance to go on a mission for a church to Haiti over 
Christmas. That was going to be her gift to poor people, and she could 
not get a passport. Another family called, having tried to sell a home 
in their family estate for month after month, had to cancel the closing 
because the Veterans' Administration cannot process papers because of 
the Gingrich shutdown.
  Now the Gingrich folks say this is a matter of personal 
responsibility. It is a matter of principles. Let me tell you, it is 
not a matter of principle if it is somebody else's paycheck on the 
line. It is a matter of principle to put your own paycheck on the line.
  The reason I became so angry and objected a minute ago to the 
District of Columbia appropriation is because the bill that should have 
been brought to the floor would include a bill from the Senate that has 
my bill in it, ``no budget, no pay.'' A bill that says when the budget 
shuts down, we stop issuing congressional paychecks.
  You know what would happen if Members of Congress did not get their 
paychecks? This crisis would be over in a heartbeat. Over in a 
heartbeat. You would start counting the case for these paid vacations 
and recesses and realize you are not going to get paid. I have given up 
my congressional salary during the shutdown. It is painful for me and 
my family.
  I guarantee you if every Member of Congress did it, if Speaker 
Gingrich did it, if Mr. DeLay, who considers him some constitutional 
officer of some kind, or Mr. Armey did it, they would think twice about 
another recess while this Government is shut down. They would think 
twice about congressional junkets and trips. They would think about 
doing the business of this country.
  Why in the world are we taking it out on all of these innocent 
people, hundreds of thousands of people? If you have a problem, show 
your statement of principle, show your character, put your own paycheck 
on the line. Do not take it out on the innocent people across this 
country.
  Let me close by saying this: We are seeing the face of modern 
Republicanism, the face of Gingrich Republicanism, and it is a mean 
face. It is a face that looks for innocent victims. Is it any wonder 
that the Democrats and President Clinton have second thoughts about the 
Gingrich budget plan? We see what they will do with the Government 
shutdown. Imagine what they will do if they get to write this budget 
for the next 7 years.

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