[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H136-H137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PASSAGE OF CONTINUING RESOLUTION URGED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Metcalf). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I do not think that there are 
really any Members of this House of Representatives today that can feel 
very proud about having shut down the Government and causing all the 
pain and suffering, the many thousands of workers whose families were 
not able to have a Christmas or a New Year's celebration, and as they 
sit at home today, have no idea what the Congress is about to do with 
respect to their jobs. They want to go back to work. For those 
individuals who are working and who have been designated as essential 
workers, they are not being paid because their agencies have not been 
funded and their funds have already run out. The suffering among the 
workers is tremendous. I was home for a brief few days during our 
Christmas recess and heard from many workers.
  The tragedy is that this is all absolutely unnecessary. The majority 
party wanted to make a point in November, and the point was that they 
were determined that the 7-year balanced budget was their priority and 
they were going to hang on to it no matter what. Even if it was 
necessary to close down the Government, they were determined to force 
the President to negotiate.
  Those negotiations have taken place. They have not yet yielded the 
results that the majority party wants, but in point of fact these 
meetings have occurred. There is absolutely no reason to tie together 
the annual appropriations, which the Constitution says is the absolute 
requirement of this Congress to do, to tie it together to a 7-year 
plan. The 7-year plan is an entirely different, separate concept which 
the Republicans are saying is important because we have to have a plan 
in order to enable us to know what to do in the next fiscal year and 
the fiscal year after that and so forth until the year 2002.
  But the reason that portions of the Government are shut down now is 
not because of the failure to have an agreement on the 7-year balanced 
budget. It 

[[Page H137]]
is because of the failure of the majority party to act in accordance 
with law in reporting out the appropriation bills for all of the 
Government operations.
  As a matter of fact, on October 1, which is the statutory deadline 
for the appropriation bills to be done, the majority had not 
accomplished even a single one except for the Congress. So then 
immediately they passed a continuing resolution, a clean resolution in 
which they permitted the Government to go about its business and to 
take care of all of the programs in effect, and that had a cutoff date 
of November 14.
  At midnight, then, the Government was shut down because there was no 
further agreement to continue the functions of those agencies that had 
not yet had appropriation bills, which were 13. Thirteen of the 
appropriation bills had not cleared even by midnight of November 13.
  So we had a short shutdown of 5 or 6 days during that period, when 
again there was a continuing resolution, this time with a club over the 
President's head, saying, ``We are only going to agree to this 
continuing resolution until December 15, and we want you to agree that 
you will come and support the concept of a balanced budget in the year 
2002,'' which he has done. There are negotiations going on.
  This business of using terrorist tactics and holding innocent people 
hostage, because someone decided that their ideas about the future of 
this country are so important and so paramount that the suffering of 
the people across the country is irrelevant, to me that is an 
unconscionable way to perform your public responsibilities as given to 
us under the Constitution.
  It is so simple for us to consider a continuing resolution. It has 
been done in the Senate. Their own Senate leader has put together a 
continuing resolution. Why not just pass that continuing resolution, 
let our workers for these remaining nine Departments go back to work 
and service the communities that are so desperately in need?
  My community depends upon the tourist business, we depend upon the 
parks, we depend upon many other facilities that are operated by the 
Federal Government. It is tragic that these entities that are really 
public services are closed down and innocent people, not connected to 
anyone here, not connected to the Federal Government, are being caused 
all this harm and suffering. It is time to allow the Government to go 
back to work.

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