[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




PRIVATE BUSINESSES WOULD NOT SHUT DOWN THE WAY GOVERNMENT HAS SHUT DOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, last year there was a popular 
film in our country called ``Dumb and Dumber.'' I often wondered why 
they did not call it ``Dumb and Dumbest.'' Ah, because that would 
convey the message a little bit better. But now I understand the 
reason, unfortunately, is the dumbest idea has been reserved for action 
taken by this Congress.
  I have been in public life 12 years, and I am sad to say that this 
furlough is the dumbest thing I have seen government do in my 12 years 
in business. I have come down to this well several times to talk about 
the furlough, which is, in effect, paying people either to stay home or 
telling them that they have to work and they are not going to get paid.
  I have basically issued a challenge, a little contest, if you will, 
because I am still looking for one business, one business in this 
entire country that twice in the same year would get so mad at itself 
that it would tell its workers go home, stay at home, and I am going to 
pay you. I have not got a call from a single business in this country 
that would do that.
  I was on a talk radio show last week in my district, and I did have a 
caller who called in and said, ``Well, I love what Speaker Gingrich is 
doing and I support what he is doing.'' I said, ``Well, let me ask you 
this, then. Would you, if you were using your own money, send your 
employees home, tell them to stay at home and that you were going to 
pay them?'' And he hemmed and hawed a little and said, ``No, I would 
not.'' I said, ``Well, I find it interesting that we now have the 
leadership in Congress who has come here and said we are going to run 
Congress like a business when there is not a single business in this 
country that would run itself the way Congress is running itself right 
now.'' It does not make any sense at all.
  Now, what should we be doing today? We are in special orders now, and 
the reason we are in special orders is because the Speaker and the 
majority will not let us even vote on a measure to get these people 
back to work. The Senate has passed it unanimously. The majority leader 
in the Senate was quoted as saying, ``Enough is enough.'' And enough is 
enough. These are people who want to work, who should be working, and 
who should be getting paid.
  Now, I hear Members from the other side come down into the well and 
talk about sacrifice and that there is a greater mission here and a 
greater good. Those are not people who talk to the people I talk to in 
my district, because I fielded as many calls as I could from employees.
  I talked to a woman who works for the FBI in Milwaukee who commutes 
100 miles a day, who has two foster children, who is living from 
paycheck to paycheck.
  I talked to a woman who works in the U.S. attorney's office, who is 
being forced to work and is not being paid. There are people in our 
neighborhood, the husband works for the VA hospital, two small 
children, his wife is at home. He is required to work and is not being 
paid.
  This morning I talked to a guard at the Oxford Federal Prison in 
Wisconsin. Three hundred employees are being required to work but are 
not being paid. I said, ``Well, what type of people do you have at the 
Oxford Prison?'' He said, ``We have a lot of drug offenders. Most of 
the people here have violent pasts.'' We are asking Federal guards to 
guard people who have been convicted of murder and selling drugs, and 
we are asking them to work without pay.

  Mr. Speaker, that is unconscionable. That should not happen in the 
United States. That should not happen in England. That should not 
happen in any country in this world.
  Again, we hear the speakers on the other side talk about sacrifice. 
The gentleman from Florida earlier talked about how moved he was that 
he talked to an older gentleman, a senior citizen on Meals on Wheels, 
and that gentleman said, the senior citizen purportedly said that he 
was willing to give up a meal in order to get a balanced budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not going to ask any citizen in this country to 
give up a meal so that we can pass a bill that has tax cuts that 
disproportionately benefit the wealthiest people in this country. It is 
wrong and we should not be doing it.
  Mr. Speaker, again, the Members on the other side talk about 
sacrifice, and it is necessary for these employees to sacrifice. Again, 
I was in my district talking to employees and they asked the obvious 
question. ``What about you, Mr. Congressman? Why are you not 
sacrificing?'' And to be honest, my initial response to them was, I 
have got a wife and I have got two children to support. And they 
jeered. They said so do we.
  I had to go home and think about that. I had to go home and think 
about it, even though I voted every time to get these people back to 
work. I had to think about the fact that they are in the same situation 
as I am. I have a 1- and 3-year-old at home and a wife at home. I do 
not want to give up my pay.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I decided today that I should do what many of my 
colleagues have done and that is to say that I will put myself in the 
same position as the other Federal employees. If we are asking them to 
sacrifice, well, then we should sacrifice, too. And I ask my colleagues 
to do the same thing, and that will end this misery.

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