[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H130-H131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      CONGRESS SHOULD DO A REALITY CHECK AND REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor, as many others 
have, to point out here it is, Thursday afternoon. It is the 20th day 
of the shutdown and the Congress has no business, and that is because 
we are not allowed to bring up the main business that everyone in 
America wonders why we are not dealing with and the sad fact the 
Government is shut down.
  The Government is shut down and we are being denied the right to come 
to 

[[Page H131]]
this floor, have a debate on that, and put the bills up so everybody 
can see how we vote. We have had over 12 votes on whether or not to 
keep this Government open. Yesterday we had one, and it was to try and 
bring up the resolution that came from the other body, the resolution 
that came unanimously from the other body, the resolution that said 
enough is enough is enough is enough in a bipartisan unanimous fashion 
and said reopen the Government, and we were denied the right to bring 
that up.
  Now, all day long I heard people give excuses. I heard that someone 
should come down with their keys, and they said, ``I do not have the 
key to open the Government on my key chain.'' Yeah, every one of us do. 
It is not a key; it is a voting card. We all have got a voting card. 
That is the key to opening the Government up.
  There have been 12 votes. If you look at how people vote, you will 
find that of the majority in this body, the Gingrich Republicans have 
voted no-no-no-no-no every single time, and now because they are afraid 
we might win we are not allowed to bring anything up.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just point out there are a few more historic data 
that we should have out there. It is also almost 100 days into this 
fiscal year, 100 days, and we have not finished the budget. Can you 
believe it? We are almost a third of the way through it and we have not 
tapped it.
  Second, it is the first anniversary of Speaker Gingrich taking the 
gavel. I remember a year ago sitting here when he was talking about we 
were going to have open rules, we are going to debate these things, and 
so forth. Well, 1 year later we cannot even bring up the bills that we 
think are fair.
  Mr. Speaker, we think we should be able to bring up the Senate 
resolution opening the Government. We think we should not be receiving 
our pay when there are Federal employees out there not receiving their 
pay. Here we are with our held harmless policy, and we said we were 
going to abide by the laws everyone else did.
  What about all the contract employees you are hearing about? Well, it 
is OK. We will get charity for the Federal employees. We will get them 
interest-free loans. We know there are 10,000 contractors with 
employees alone dealing with EPA and Superfund sites that have been 
shut down. Now, those 10,000 contractors all happen to have employees, 
and we have no way to guarantee that they get to come back to work or 
they get their pay or what happens to them.
  Mr. Speaker, that is just one teeny weeny little facet. So to say we 
will try and get charity for the Federal employees still does not have 
anything to do with the magnitude that is out there. We know 240 small 
businesses a day are denied the money that they need from the Small 
Business Administration for bridge loans for creating new jobs, for 
expansion, for whatever. What happens to that fallout?
  Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on and on, but I think the thing that 
makes me the craziest is listening to this piety about we have to do 
this because of a balanced budget and because the President is not 
using the right numbers and he will not come down with the right 
numbers for the year 2002. Reality check, people. We have not even done 
the budget for this year. We should be talking about the year 2002?
  Next reality check. In the year 2002, this President, even if he is 
reelected, will not be President in 2002. This President cannot bind 
future Presidents.
  Mr. Speaker, let me give you another reality check. Most of us are 
not going to be in this body in the year 2002, especially if we keep 
acting like this bunch of clowns that it looks like to the average 
person. Even if we were, we cannot bind future Congresses.
  So, Mr. Speaker, here we are not doing our work this year and blaming 
it on the fact we do not like the kind of budget the President is 
committing to 7 years from now when he will not even be here and saying 
our numbers are not as good or his numbers are not as good as the 
numbers they have.
  Mr. Speaker, we also hear about how much better and how much more 
they care about the balanced budget. I am a Member who voted for the 
Democratic budget on this floor, and I want to tell my colleagues on 
the other side, your scoring office, the Congressional Budget Office, 
will tell you that the budget that I voted for has a much lower deficit 
than the ones the majority party is pushing. The Congressional Budget 
Office says that in the year 1997, ours is $30 billion below in 
deficit, and I could go on with the rest of the numbers. But let us get 
the facts and do the reality. Let us get the Government open, and let 
us stop playing games.

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