[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H146-H147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE PRESIDENT DID NOT KEEP HIS WORD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Bono] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BONO. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I happen to have been sued very 
often in my life. I dislike all of that because it just seems to take 
everything out of your hands, and pretty soon a judge is telling you 
how you have to live, and why, and what, and where. And the greatest 
lesson I--one of the greatest lessons I ever got was when I was sued 
for indentured servitude, white slavery, and it got all throughout the 
press, and all the press read it, and it described me as a Svengali and 
that I controlled this person's life. Then it got to court, and it was 
thrown out because it was ridiculous. But that stayed with me for many, 
many years, until eventually people found out the truth.
  So my point is that you sit here and try to find out what all of this 
means and what all this dialog is about, and people tell you different 
stories about different situations, and they say, well, if the 
Republicans would just sign a CR, they would not inflict pain. Well, 
you know that depends on if the glass is half empty or half full.
  If the President had kept his word--now understand this, which I 
think is far more important: Our President should keep his word. He 
said, ``I agree to a balanced budget, scored by CBO, within 7 years, by 
a certain date.'' When that date came and went, he did not perform, and 
we gave him a CR, taking his word, and he violated his word. So now 
they are saying, well, give us another CR.
  So, you know, if you get burned once, then you are a little reluctant 
to keep playing the same game over and over. So when you say there is 
pain inflicted, look at the President and ask him why he said he would 
do something, and we all agreed, and everybody was happy, and then 
refused to do it.
  So you know this notion that there is just one party to blame, and 
that is why I go to this other story about myself, is that I did not do 
anything wrong, but the perception was that; and we have not done 
anything wrong, but they are trying to give you that perception that we 
do not care.
  I am very sensitive to seniors, I am very sensitive to people who do 
not get a paycheck. I spent many months not getting a paycheck.
  But that is not the point. The point is I came here, and I said to my 
constituents and you Americans, ``You know, we must balance the budget. 
You don't have an imbalanced budget at home, and we have got to balance 
it for you.'' I promised to do that. So all year I have been working to 
balance the budget.
  Now we are here, we are at this critical confrontation, Mr. Speaker, 
and this is why we have fought so hard over this issue, and here we are 
with a confrontation.
  Now, does it make any sense to say, OK, here we are with this issue, 
now let us back all the way off and do everything back on the 
President's terms? Not to me it does not. Because he does not keep his 
word I have a very hard time trusting what he will say in the future, 
and so I think now we have to, of course, stand tough, but certainly we 
are not insensitive to this, and if there is an insensitivity, look at 
the person that did not keep his word.
  I just want to say to you, things are not always as they appear, and 
rhetoric is rhetoric. Always try to find out the facts, and the facts 
are the President did not keep his word.

[[Page H147]]


IT IS WRONG TO USE FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AS PAWNS IN THE GAME OF THE BUDGET 
                                 DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Holden] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. 
Abercrombie].
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason that I wanted to have that minute was to give 
the gentleman an opportunity to discuss, just for at least a moment, 
his proposition that the President has not kept his word. I appreciate 
the civility of his comments and understand he has been an ex-mayor, he 
has had some legislative experience; but it is hard for me to 
comprehend why would he punish innocent people if somebody else does 
not keep their word? We are legislators. Why do we not get together 
then, and come up with a proposition, and we could present it to the 
President? I fail to understand the rationale, and I do not think the 
American people accept the proposition that because the President is 
perceived by the gentleman from California and his colleagues as not 
having kept his word, they are going to punish the American people.

  Punishing the American people will not solve it. We are legislators. 
We need to solve it right here in this Chamber.
  Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, the time has come in this Chamber for 
action. Senator Dole summed it up absolutely correct when he said in 
the other Chamber, ``Enough is enough,'' as he guided a continuing 
resolution through the other Chamber that opened up the Federal 
Government.
  We need to do the same thing in this Chamber.
  I have thousands of Federal employees in my district, in the Social 
Security Administration, in the Veterans' Administration, at Federal 
prisons, at Minersville, Lewisburg, and Allenwood who are either on a 
furlough, or who are being forced to work extra hours, an extra shift, 
and not being paid. It is not right to use Federal employees as pawns 
in this game in this whole budget debate.

                              {time}  1730

  So I say to my colleagues, let us pass a continuing resolution and 
let us continue this debate on balancing the budget.
  I say to my colleagues on the other side, I want to work with you. I 
want to work with you in balancing the budget in 7 years using CBO 
numbers, and we can do that. The framework for doing that is already in 
place. We need to continue the dialog and have a give-and-take process.
  If you look at the coalition budget that was offered in this House, 
it balanced the budget in 7 years and had no tax cuts. I say to you 
that is a framework. We can work with that and we can balance the 
budget. You look at the budget that passed this House and we had $245 
billion in tax breaks in that. To me, that is personally unacceptable; 
it is too large. But I am willing to go halfway and meet my friend on 
the other side in moving toward balancing the budget.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOLDEN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the gentleman's 
attitude, and I would be open to work with you guys on that. I think a 
lot of people on our side of the aisle would. I also want to say that I 
am one of those who think that we should get the folks back working.
  Let me say this: Would the President accept that coalition budget? 
Because one of our reluctances is that if we pass that, will the 
President stand behind it?
  Mr. HOLDEN. I do not know if the President will accept that budget, 
but I can tell you that I will accept it, and there are numerous 
Members on our side of the aisle who have already voted for it and many 
more who will vote for it when it comes up again.
  When you look at the differences in the budget, the budget that 
passed the House that the gentleman voted for had a $245 billion tax 
break in it. If you would reduce that, say, down to $110 or $100 
billion, still giving a tax break to working families, and put that 
$100 or $110 billion in savings into the Medicare system where we would 
only be having, say, $150 or $170 billion in the slowing of growth of 
the Medicare Program, that is something that is acceptable to me.
  I look at my district where I have 95,000 Medicare recipients and 
thousands more waiting to go into the Medicare Program; and I look at 
the hospitals in my district, and right now they are only receiving $1 
for every $1 of services they are providing for Medicare patients. 
Under the proposed budget that the gentleman voted for, that would go 
down to 88 cents.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I want you to know that I 
believe that there is a lot of room for discussion on that. I do not 
pretend to represent all Republicans on this, but I know that there are 
many who would like to work with you on it. Again, the concern is, 
could we do it as a veto-proof measure if the President will not go 
along with a bipartisan budget. Would you have any feel for that?
  Mr. HOLDEN. Well, I would say to the gentleman, if we can put a 
budget on this floor that I believe in, I would vote for it and I would 
vote to override a veto if it was.
  I cannot speak for the entire Democratic membership, but I believe 
that this process that is going on now where people are saying, it is 
going to be my way or no way at all, is not healthy for the gentleman 
or me or the American people. We need to get this process going, and 
there are points of contention that I believe can be ironed out.

  Medicaid is one of the contentions that I have, the Medicaid system. 
I am not exactly thrilled with block-granting Medicaid, and the reason 
for that is Pennsylvania has the second highest senior citizen 
population in the country, next to Florida. Under the proposed budget 
that passed the House, Pennsylvania would lose $9 billion over 7 years 
in the Medicaid Program.
  Forty-five percent of all Medicaid expenditures in the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania are for the senior citizens and nursing homes. So to 
lose $9 billion, half of that which goes to seniors and nursing homes 
would put a terrible burden on the Commonwealth.
  I am not saying that would vote for a program that block-granted 
Medicaid, but we would have to make sure it was fair and that the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in my case, would be treated fairly. I am 
sure the gentleman would feel the same about Georgia.
  If I could just sum up and thank the gentleman for the dialog and say 
that I believe that we can pass a balanced budget, but there are those 
who will not give in on the tax cut that might have to be left behind, 
and there are those who do not really have the priority of balancing 
the budget that may need to be left behind, but we can drive a budget 
down the middle, and that is what the American people want us to do.

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