[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H148-H149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP SHOULD KEEP ITS WORD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Bishop] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot about keeping their word. 
I think one of the most interesting things that has happened this year 
is that during the first 100 days as a part of the so-called Contract 
With America, there was an item that some of us supported called the 
line-item veto.
  We passed the line-item veto. It passed both Houses of the Congress 
and yet it has not been sent to the President for his signature. They 
will not send it. They will not keep their word, because had there been 
a line-item veto, we would not be in this shutdown that we are now in. 
We would be able to continue the operation of Government and the 
American people would no longer be suffering, and only those items in 
the budget where there was a bone of contention would be on the table 
for discussion.
  Keeping their word, the Republican leadership ought to keep its word 
and send to the President a line-item veto and get us out of this 
shutdown.
  There are some of us that have supported a 7-year balanced budget, 
some in the 103d Congress using CBO numbers, but having no tax cut.

                              {time}  1745

  We are being led to believe that the reason that the Government is 
shut down is because Democrats and the President will not agree to a 7-
year balanced budget using CBO numbers. The real bone of contention is 
the tax cut, 245 billion dollars' worth for wealthy people, while 
cutting in half the tax breaks and adding to the taxes of the working 
poor, people who earn $26,000 a year or less, by repealing half of 
their earned income tax credit.
  I must agree with Senator Dole--enough is enough. This message comes 
across loud and clear from my constituents in the Second District of 
Georgia.
  For the second time in 3 months, the U.S. Government ran out of money 
and 

[[Page H149]]
nine Federal agencies serving millions of Americans shut their doors. 
The shutdown occurred after a short-term funding resolution expired and 
Republicans failed to pass a fair and equitable funding bill for the 
various agencies.
  The cost to the taxpayers of this budget failure increases every day 
that the impasse continues. As the Government shutdown enters its 20th 
day and the cost of that shutdown to the American taxpayer is $50 
million each business day, citizens from southwest Georgia are also 
experiencing this shutdown in other ways.

  My constituents are fed up with a shutdown that stops money for the 
Older Americans Senior Citizens Center, a facility that has provided 
needed services such as meals and transportation, Meals on Wheels for 
many senior citizens in Macon, GA; a shutdown that stopped 40 students 
and teachers from Whigam Elementary School in Whigam, GA from touring 
the White House, the FBI, the Smithsonian Institute, and from laying a 
wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National 
Cemetery after a 2-year fund-raising effort on their part; a shutdown 
that stops access to passports for members of the African Methodist 
Episcopal Church who want to travel to South Africa to celebrate the 
100th anniversary of the founding of their church in that country, a 
Mercer University student from Cordele, GA, who earned a fellowship to 
study this semester in England; and for a Kendrick High School student 
in Columbus who could not go to Japan on a nonrefundable ticket that 
she worked a year to purchase, all because she could not get a passport 
because of the shutdown; a shutdown that stops many Federal workers 
from paying house payments, utility bills, car notes, and from buying 
food and medication for family members.
  Mr. Speaker, this is immoral and unconscionable. Enough is enough. It 
is time for Republicans to offer a funding bill, a fair and equitable 
funding bill that will reopen the Government and still continue the 
budget negotiations. Americans have been away from their jobs long 
enough and without services long enough.
  Mr. Speaker, the House should take up and pass H.R. 1643 to end the 
shutdown of the Government, to return Federal workers to work and 
restore needed services to American citizens. Then we should pass a 
fair and equitable balanced budget, 7 years, using CBO numbers, without 
a tax cut until the budget is balanced.

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