[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H149-H150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         DEMOCRATS TO CONTINUE TO FIGHT TO SUPPORT MIDDLE CLASS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Clement] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CLEMENT. Mr. Speaker, I join the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. 
Cardin] in his legislation because I feel strongly we must stay here 
until we get the job completed. Part of that assignment is to get the 
Federal workers back to work because this partial shutdown surely does 
not make any sense at all.
  As a Member of Congress, I have had the opportunity to vote in 
support of a balanced budget amendment and I am proud of it, and we 
passed it in the House of Representatives. It failed by one vote in the 
U.S. Senate.
  Since I have been a Member of Congress, I have also had the 
opportunity to support and vote for a line-item veto, and why the 
Republicans and the Republican leadership would hold it up now simply 
because we have a Democratic President, and the same Republicans year 
after year when we had a Republican President in office wanted a line-
item veto, and now when we have the opportunity, that window of 
opportunity to have a line-item veto, we do not have it because the 
Republicans have held it up.
  We have not gotten much credit in the last few years for cutting the 
budget deficits in half, but we have accomplished that objective by 
working together. We have downsized the military. The cold war is over. 
That is a major achievement for the U.S. Congress and something we all 
ought to be proud of. We have downsized the Federal Government. We 
needed to do it. 

[[Page H150]]
The Federal Government, all governments, need to operate more 
efficiently.
  But I have noticed over the years, particularly the last several 
years, when the criticisms have come, particularly about government, I 
do not hear the Republicans pointing their finger at big business and 
some of the actions they have taken, particularly on mergers and 
acquisitions and laying off hundreds of thousands of people. I do not 
hear them saying too much about that. But when it comes to government, 
about the inefficiencies of government, I sure hear a lot of criticism 
about government, but not about big business.
  Maybe the time has come to get our priorities in order. Maybe the 
time has come when we ought not to have so much bickering and we should 
have less partisanship and less acrimony in our dealings with one 
another. Maybe we ought to have a little more respect for one another 
on the floor.
  I know we have got a lot of new Members. We have got 73 new 
Republicans since January of 1995, and I know a lot of them think we 
have not accomplished anything, that everything we have done in the 
past is wrong. Well, maybe they ought to read our history books, all 
the way back to June and July of 1776 when at the Continental Congress 
in Philadelphia our Founding Fathers had to work out their differences 
in order to sign a document we know of as the Declaration of 
Independence.
  Yes, we have got a lot of friction between the parties and yes, we 
have a lot of friction within the parties, and we are sure seeking a 
lot of that now, particularly between the House and the Senate. The 
Senate Republicans want to put the Federal workers back to work, but 
not the House Republicans. They want to continue this impasse. They 
want to continue this gridlock.
  We Democrats do want to protect Medicare. Yes, we Democrats want to 
protect Medicaid and education and the environment. We do not want a 
tax on our working people. We want to do more for our students, knowing 
that they need an education in order for us to have a strong middle 
class for the future. That is why we have been so successful in 
America, is because we have had a strong middle class, and I assure you 
the Democrats are going to continue to fight for the middle class 
because they are the backbone of America.

  I am part of a bipartisan group that is meeting now, and we have been 
meeting almost every day to somehow break this gridlock and this 
impasse that we presently have. We are talking about policy and 
substance. We are willing to sacrifice our political and partisan talk 
for real results.
  I urge all my colleagues to work together in the next few days to 
deliver this important gift to the American people. Let us put the 
Federal workers back to work, let us balance the budget within 7 years 
using CBO numbers. We can accomplish all those goals and objectives. 
But we surely should not have used Federal workers as whipping boys. It 
serves no useful purpose.
  We have a job to accomplish. I know what I am going to do. I am not 
going to accept a January paycheck until other Federal workers are back 
to work, and I encourage others to practice the same policy. Maybe if 
we do not accept our paycheck, maybe we will get more accomplished 
quicker, faster now.

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