[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S62-S63]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE CURRENT SITUATION

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, there has been a rather lengthy 
discussion this morning about the continuing resolution and the status 
of our public employees. I very much wanted to be here this morning to 
talk about it, but obviously I had some other things I had to do as we 
seek to get a balanced budget.

  I thought I might take just a few minutes and talk about the fact 
that the situation that we are in today is the result of both the 
President of the United States and the Congress of the United States 
having certain rights and certain responsibilities. In a sense, it is a 
two-way street, not a one-way street like everybody has been talking 
about, including the President, who used the words ``cynical strategy'' 
to talk about the Republican Congress, albeit he chose to say it was 
the Republican House rather than both of us. ``Cynical strategy'' 
seemed to indicate that the entire blame for where we are today should 
be borne by the U.S. House Republicans, or a combination of the House 
Republicans and the Senate Republicans.
  Mr. President, and fellow Americans, that is not true. Let me state 
what Republicans have done and what I perceive that the President has 
not done that put us in this situation that we are in today. Before I 
begin that, I would like very much to state once again that I hope we 
can resolve the issue of Federal employees who have not been paid and 
who have been relying upon their paychecks while they work without pay 
or relying upon them because we promise to pay them. I think we ought 
to solve that issue and solve it quickly. They are not responsible for 
the problem.
  Having said that, Republicans in both Houses produced a balanced 
budget using real numbers and using the Congressional Budget Office 
estimates. We already did that. The President of the United States, in 
his capacity as the Chief Executive, chose to veto that. 

[[Page S63]]
 Had that been signed, obviously we would not be in this mess.
  I am not standing here saying the President has no prerogative to 
veto that. He vetoed it. Nonetheless, we had already passed many of the 
appropriations bills, and the President got on television yesterday and 
enumerated a whole series of things that were situations where either 
people are suffering because we have not passed certain appropriations 
bills, or the Government cannot do certain things like issue visas, so 
many foreigners cannot get in the country. And the President is 
critical of the Congress--in particular, the Republicans in the House--
because he says they are to blame for this.
  Let me remind the American people this is a two-way street. Had the 
President of the United States signed three bills which he vetoed--
Commerce, State, Justice; Interior appropriations; VA-HUD 
appropriations--many of the long list and litany of things that have 
gone wrong in America would not have gone wrong. They would have been 
taken care of by these bills.

  Now, there are some who took to the floor this morning and said the 
President has this absolute right to veto but Congress has no rights; 
they must respond and either give him what he wants or suffer the 
consequences of partial closure of Government. Not so. No student of 
our Constitution is going to tell you that. When he vetoes them, he 
bears some responsibility for vetoing them. We certainly have a 
responsibility to say, well, if he vetoed them, try something else and 
see if we can get through this.
  I understand that is being tried and some targeted appropriations are 
being worked on. I hope it works. I hope the President understands the 
next time we send him something that is targeted that he does not have 
the absolute right to veto them and then claim it is our responsibility 
because the Government is closed. We have a right to stand up and say, 
``Mr. President, these are tough times. We do not agree on a lot of 
things, but you do not have the absolute immunity to veto bills and 
blame us because the Government is closed.''
  You might have to look at the next Interior bill. Mr. President, 
there was not very much money involved in that Interior bill. Frankly, 
you got some bad advice on the Interior bill, yet you get up and talk 
about cynicism when most of those U.S. monuments, the museums, would 
have all been opened if you had signed that bill. You look at your 
list, Mr. President, of why you vetoed it--pretty flimsy stuff. If you 
have some responsibility in this, then the public ought to look at why 
you vetoed them and what were your reasons.
  Let me also suggest that the President used some very, very 
strained--strained--words when he spoke of cynical strategy. I am 
working in good faith with this President to try to get a balanced 
budget, but I believe he and his entire administration have been 
engaged in a cynical strategy since June of this year when they 
produced a budget allegedly in balance that did not use the 
Congressional Budget Office numbers and economics but used their own, 
concocted by their on economists, by their own OMB personnel, and have 
never to this day produced a balanced budget using the Congressional 
Budget Office numbers. That is a strategy. It is a beautiful strategy. 
Since the word ``cynical'' is battered around, it is a cynical strategy 
because never to this day--while blaming Republicans for all kinds of 
things--never to this day has the President of the United States had to 
put a balanced budget on the table. We are negotiating with him and he 
still has never put one on. He has not put it on in the negotiations. 
And I am breaching nothing there, everybody understands he has not. He 
did not when we asked him to, and he signed a continuing resolution 
that said we would be bound by the Congressional Budget Office 
economics and numbers, and the conclusion on that is that means the 
final agreement will be judged that way, not that I have to produce 
one. Is that not interesting?

  So, to this date, no balanced budget in 7 years using the CBO numbers 
has been produced by this White House, by this President, by his 
Cabinet. And they are now engaged in blaming this whole episode on 
Republicans.
  At least it is a two-way street from here to Pennsylvania Avenue, and 
when Presidents veto bills that fund Government, they take a bit of the 
responsibility of what will happen if Congress chooses not to fund some 
of those. After all, I do not advocate this, but the truth of the 
matter is the Constitution is eminently clear. Congress has the purse 
strings of the U.S. Government. We decide how to spend the taxpayers' 
money, and that is not a shared responsibility, I regret to say. That 
is a singular responsibility, and we have been choosing not to fund 
what the President wants.
  We are also trying to get a balanced budget, which the President 
either does not want or wants something different on. These are 
difficult political and philosophical times. What is at stake is big. 
For some of us what is at stake is whether future generations have to 
pay for our bills or whether we will pay for them ourselves.
  So, whenever we have stories about things going wrong because 
Government is closed, none of us like that. But the big reason for all 
this, it all starts because Republicans have come to the conclusion 
that we want to live up to our commitment to use real numbers, no phony 
numbers, use Congressional Budget Office numbers and produce 
significant change in Government so as to produce a balanced budget.
  So I wish I could have done this earlier in the day, but I think I 
have made my case. I think I have made my case that the reason we are 
in this mess is not just because Republicans have not sent bills to the 
President to fund Government; the President bears some of the blame, 
and I have elaborated that as best I could here today. It is a two-way 
street, and bantering around words like cynicism, and a cynical 
strategy, deserves a response. Or it is not too far-fetched to conclude 
that their strategy in the White House has been a cynical strategy of 
rather significant proportions.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NUNN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator from Georgia yield me 30 seconds?
  Mr. NUNN. I yield the 30 seconds.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I think it is important at this point to 
have printed in the Record a quote from Investor's Business Daily, 
November 8 of 1995.

       Gingrich has said he would force the government to miss 
     interest and principal payments for the first time ever to 
     force Democratic Clinton's administration to agree to his 
     seven-year deficit reductions.

  And a quote from Representative Sherwood Boehlert, a quote from the 
Los Angeles Times of November 14:

       You have a group in our conference who could not care less 
     if the government shuts down. . . . They will be cheering.

  I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.

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