[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




GINGRICH PLAN TO HOLD HOSTAGE FEDERAL EMPLOYEES IN THE BUDGET DEBATE IS 
                         NO PROFILE IN COURAGE.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, there is a big difference between courage 
and kidnapping. Courage is sacrificing oneself for a cause. On the 
other hand, kidnapping is sacrificing someone else for a person's self-
interest.
  I would suggest that the Gingrich plan to use Federal employees as 
hostages in the budget debate is far more akin to kidnapping than to 
courage. It is no profile in courage to sacrifice innocent victims for 
someone's own cause, and that is exactly what the Speaker and his 
supporters in the House have done. They are getting their congressional 
paychecks while they are stopping innocent Federal employees from 
getting theirs. That is not courage, that is hypocrisy at its worst.
  The issue before us is not whether we should balance the budget. I 
support that. That is an important cause. The issue before us is how we 
will balance the budget over the next 7 years, and the Gingrich 
Republicans have no right to use Federal employees, hundreds of 
thousands of them and their families, to force upon this country their 
own particular plan. If the Gingrich budget cannot withstand the light 
of day, if it cannot stand on its own in an open public debate in our 
democracy, then it would be morally wrong to pass that budget simply 
because it is the only way to free hundreds of thousands of Federal 
employees. Hostage taking, kidnapping, and blackmail have absolutely no 
place in a free society.
  Mr. Speaker, I think Senator Dole, the majority leader of the other 
party, a Member of the Republican Party, leader of the Senate, was 
right when he said enough is enough. I do not see any sense in what we 
have been doing. Let me repeat that. Senator DOLE said, ``I don't see 
any sense in what we've been doing. I would hope that we would have 
quick action in the House. People have been gone from their jobs long 
enough. Enough is enough.''
  Bob Dole was right. Newt Gingrich and his supporters in this House 
are wrong. We should pass a clean continuing resolution and immediately 
reopen the Federal Government.
  We are not talking about statistics and numbers here, Mr. Speaker. We 
are talking about real people with real families. Let me tell you about 
some of those from our district who have written me:

       Dear sir, I am scheduled to be in surgery for colon cancer 
     on the 3rd of January. Because of the government shutdown I 
     have not been able to resolve the question of income. This 
     thing has put my life savings in the toilet, so I don't have 
     the money to come for the surgery. Since this thing is going 
     to wipe out my career if I can't get some type disability, 
     I'm going to be the only homeless person with an oxygen 
     bottle for emphysema and a colostomy for colon cancer. I 
     don't find much quality of life here. I have paid into Social 
     Security since 1954. I also served in the U.S. military for 
     8.5 years. I find it a bad situation when I can't get any 
     help. At 56 I'm too young to retire and too old to be 
     retrained.

                              {time}  1530

  A veteran in my district, Mr. Speaker, who served his country in the 
military for 8\1/2\ years, cannot get any help for colon cancer because 
of the shutdown, the unnecessary, unfair shutdown of the Federal 
Government.
  Mr. Speaker, it is fine and it is healthy and it is good for us to 
debate a balanced budget and how we are going to get there. We should 
have that debate. My feeling is whether that debate takes 2 days or 2 
weeks or 2 months longer, it is better that we do it right than to do 
it under the blackmail threat of shutting down hundreds of thousands of 
Federal employees from receiving their paychecks.
  Another real person with a real family in my district, who is a 
victim of the Gingrich strategy:

       Dear Representative Edwards: Both my husband and I are 
     employed at the Central Texas Medical Center in Temple, 
     Texas. Because we both work for the VA, an underfunded 
     Federal agency. We will receive only one-half of our 
     paychecks on January 2. My car is five years old. We saved 
     $1,100 to put into a badly needed transmission. Fortunately, 
     we have that money to get us through this pay period. It do 
     not know what we would have done if it were not for that. I 
     cry every night when I watch the news because I am so angry 
     and worried.

  We have another constituent that wrote, ``Dear Mr. Edwards. I was 
furloughed for two weeks even though I was told purchasing agents were 
essential on December 28, 1995. I am a single parent, and I am not 
whining about this, I am very proud of it, but there is no second 
income in my family.''
  It is time to put Federal workers back to work.

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