[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H129-H130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CLEAN CONTINUING RESOLUTION WILL PUT FEDERAL EMPLOYEES BACK TO WORK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Buyer], who just spoke, for his steadfastness for an 
effort to balance the budget, but I must disagree with him to the 
extent as far as he will go by saying that we must have a vision, and 
the vision is that we balance the budget in 7 years, and in the 
meantime, we make people suffer unendlessly. Those people who are 
suffering are innocent victims, not only Federal employees but 
contractors, private businesses, et cetera, in order to reach that 
goal, and it is not necessary.
  Mr. Speaker, I tell the gentleman from Indiana, he and others on his 
side had an opportunity to vote for the coalition balanced budget 
amendment that many of us supported, and they did not, for the sole 
reason that it did not include a big tax cut for the wealthy. That is 
the only reason.
  So, it tells me that what they really want is a big tax cut for the 
wealthy at the same time they want to cut back on Medicare, et cetera. 
But that is not 

[[Page H130]]
really why I want to take the 5 minutes. I just want to emphasize that 
I, too, support a balanced budget in 7 years, but I do not want to give 
the tax cut and cut Medicare and all those other things at same time.
  We can have a balanced budget. There is no question in my mind that 
if the majority party would decide to go with the coalition budget, we 
could pass it and I think the President would sign it and we would have 
it done, but that is not what they want.
  The other thing, what I really came here to talk about is I keep 
hearing in this well, and I heard it in December and I have heard it 
ever since December 15, telling us that the President has not come 
forth with his budget; that he agreed in the November 20 continuing 
resolution to bring a balanced budget. That is not what it says.
  Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the gentleman from South Carolina and others 
who have made that statement, that they either cannot read, and that is 
a sorry affair for somebody to be in the Congress that cannot read, or, 
if they can read, they do not understand what they read.
  I would like to read to the Members of Congress, for those who have 
not read that resolution, what it actually says.

       Section 203: Commitment to a 7-Year Balanced Budget. The 
     President and the Congress shall enact legislation in the 
     first session of the 104th Congress to achieve a balanced 
     budget not later than the fiscal year 2002, as estimated by 
     the Congressional Budget Office; and, the President and the 
     Congress agree that the balanced budget must protect future 
     generations, ensure Medicare solvency, reform welfare, and 
     provide adequate funding for Medicaid, education, 
     agriculture, national defense, veterans and the environment. 
     Further, the balanced budget shall adopt tax policies to help 
     working families and stimulate future economic growth.

  This does not say anything about the President submitting a balanced 
budget to anybody, but yet they keep insisting the reason they shut 
down the Government is because the President has not submitted a 
balanced budget to them. They submitted their balanced budget and they 
say the President has not submitted his.
  Mr. Speaker, the President never agreed to do that. There is not one 
statement in there about the President submitting a balanced budget. 
What is really interesting to me is the conditions that they now put on 
a CR, continuing resolution. Back on October 1, we had a CR, a 
continuing resolution, that ran into November. It did not have any 
conditions.
  The President stands today, and we on this side stand, ready to sign 
and vote for a continuing resolution to keep this Government going. We 
proved that yesterday. We wanted to take up the resolution of Senator 
Dole, the majority leader from the Senate, that would have kept this 
Government working, but we could not get 20 Members from the other side 
to go along with us. We got 2, and that is all from the majority party.
  The Gingrich Republicans refused to let us even take that up. They 
said, ``No. We are going to keep the Government shut down until we get 
our way.'' Pure blackmail. That is all it is.
  Mr. Speaker, this has never happened before in the history of this 
country. We have never had a shutdown to this magnitude and to this 
length of time. And how much longer will it go? Well, we are going to 
have to ask Speaker Gingrich, because he is the only one that can tell 
us. All the rest of the Republicans are going to follow him just like a 
pied piper. If he decides that we do a continuing resolution, we will 
do it. If he decides we do not, we will not. So, we will have to ask 
Speaker Gingrich whether this is going to last another month, a week, 2 
weeks or whatever.
  Mr. Speaker, I say all we need is a continuing resolution, a clean 
one, and we can get everybody back to work. We can still negotiate on a 
balanced budget.

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