Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 3 (Friday, January 5, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 3 (Friday, January 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H226-H240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

{time} 1630
PROVIDING FOR DISPOSITION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION
134, MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1996

Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 336 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

H. Res. 336

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution the House
shall be considered to have taken from the Speaker's table
the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 134) making further
continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1996, and for
other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to
have concurred in the Senate amendment with an amendment
consisting of the text printed in the report of the Committee
on Rules accompanying this resolution.
Sec. 2. House Concurrent Resolution 131 is hereby adopted.
Sec. 3. The Clerk shall not transmit to the Senate a
message regarding H.J. Res. 134 until the House has received
a message that the Senate has agreed to House Concurrent
Resolution 131 as adopted by the House.

The text of the Senate amendment and the motion are as follows:
Senate amendment:

[[Page H227]]

Strike out all after the resolving clause and insert:

TITLE I

AID TO FAMILIES WITH DEPENDENT CHILDREN AND FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTION
ASSISTANCE

Provided, That whenever the amount which would be made
available or the authority which would be granted under an
Act which including funding for fiscal year 1996 for the
projects and activities listed in this section is greater
than that which would be available or granted under current
operations, the pertinent project or activity shall be
continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the current
rate.
(b) Whenever the amount which would be made available or
the authority which would be granted under the Act which
included funding for fiscal year 1996 for the projects and
activities listed in this section as passed by the House as
of the date of enactment of this joint resolution, is
different from that which would be available or granted under
such Act as passed by the Senate as of the date of enactment
of this joint resolution, the pertinent project or activity
shall be continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the
current rate or the rate permitted by the action of the House
or the Senate, whichever is lower, under the authority and
conditions provided in the applicable appropriations Act for
the fiscal year 1995.
(c) Whenever an Act which included funding for fiscal year
1996 for the projects and activities listed in this section
has been passed by only the House or only the Senate as of
the date of enactment of this joint resolution, the pertinent
project or activity shall be continued under the
appropriation, fund, or authority granted by the one House at
a rate for operations not exceeding the current rate or the
rate permitted by the action of the one House, whichever is
lower, and under the authority and conditions provided in the
applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 102. Appropriations made by section 101 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner which would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 103. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 101 shall be used to
initiate or resume any project or activity for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available
during the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 104. No provision which is included in the
appropriations Act enumerated in section 101 but which was
not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 1995 and which by its terms is applicable to more than
one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to
any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this joint
resolution.
Sec. 105. Appropriations made and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this joint resolution shall cover
all obligations or expenditures incurred for any program,
project, or activity during the period for which funds or
authority for such project or activity are available under
this joint resolution.
Sec. 106. Unless otherwise provided for in this title of
this joint resolution or in the applicable appropriations
Act, appropriations and funds made available and authority
granted pursuant to this title of this joint resolution shall
be available until (a) enactment into law of an appropriation
for any project or activity provided for in this title of
this joint resolution, or (b) the enactment into law of the
applicable appropriations Act by both Houses without any
provision for such project or activity, or (c) January 3,
1996, whichever first occurs.
Sec. 107. Expenditures made pursuant to this title of this
joint resolution shall be charged to the applicable
appropriation, fund, or authorization whenever a bill in
which such applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization
is contained is enacted into law.
Sec. 108. No provision in the appropriations Act for the
fiscal year 1996 referred to in section 101 of this joint
resolution that makes the availability of any appropriation
provided therein dependent upon the enactment of additional
authorizing or other legislation shall be effective before
the date set forth in section 106(c) of this joint
resolution.
Sec. 109. Appropriations and funds made available by or
authority granted pursuant to this title of this joint
resolution may be used without regard to the time limitations
for submission and approval of apportionments set forth in
section 1513 of title 31, United States Code, but nothing
herein shall be construed to waive any other provision of law
governing the apportionment of funds.

TITLE II

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Provided, That whenever the amount which would be made
available or the authority which would be granted in this Act
is greater than that which would be available or granted
under current operations, the pertinent project or activity
shall be continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the
current rate.
(b) Whenever the amount which would be made available or
the authority which would be granted under the Act listed in
this section as passed by the House as of the date of
enactment of this joint resolution, is different from that
which would be available or granted under such Act as passed
by the Senate as of the date of enactment of this joint
resolution, the pertinent project or activity shall be
continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the current
rate or the rate permitted by the action of the House or the
Senate, whichever is lower, under the authority and
conditions provided in the applicable appropriations Act for
the fiscal year 1995: Provided, That where an item is not
included in either version or where an item is included in
only one version of the Act as passed by both Houses as of
the date of enactment of this joint resolution, the pertinent
project or activity shall not be continued except as provided
for in section 211 or 212 under the appropriation, fund, or
authority granted by the applicable appropriations Act for
the fiscal year 1995 and under the authority and conditions
provided in the applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal
year 1995.
Sec. 202. Appropriations made by section 201 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner which would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 203. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 201 shall be used to
initiate or resume any project or activity for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available
during the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 204. No provision which is included in the
appropriations Act enumerated in section 201 but which was
not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 1995 and which by its terms is applicable to more than
one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to
any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this title
of this joint resolution.
Sec. 205. Appropriations made and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this joint resolution shall cover
all obligations or expenditures incurred for any program,
project, or activity during the period for which funds or
authority for such project or activity are available under
this title of this joint resolution.
Sec. 206. Unless otherwise provided for in this title of
this joint resolution or in the applicable appropriations
Act, appropriations and funds made available and authority
granted pursuant to this title of this joint resolution shall
be available until (a) enactment into law of an appropriation
for any project or activity provided for in this title of
this joint resolution, or (b) the enactment into law of the
applicable appropriations Act by both Houses without any
provision for such project or activity, or (c) January 3,
1996, whichever first occurs.
Sec. 207. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this joint resolution, except section 206, none of the
funds appropriated under this title of this joint resolution
shall be expended for any abortion except where the life of
the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to
term or where the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape
or incest.
Sec. 208. Expenditures made pursuant to this title of this
joint resolution shall be charged to the applicable
appropriation, fund, or authorization whenever a bill in
which such applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization
is contained is enacted into law.
Sec. 209. No provision in the appropriations Act for the
fiscal year 1996 referred to in section 201 of this title of
this joint resolution that makes the availability of any
appropriation provided therein dependent upon the enactment
of additional authorizing or other legislation shall be
effective before the date set forth in section 206(c) of this
joint resolution.
Sec. 210. Appropriations and funds made available by or
authority granted pursuant to this title of this joint
resolution may be used without regard to the time limitations
for submission and approval of apportionments set forth in
section 1513 of title 31, United States Code, but nothing
herein shall be construed to waive any other provision of law
governing the apportionment of funds.
Sec. 211. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this joint resolution, except section 206, whenever the
Act listed in section 201 as passed by both the House and
Senate as of

[[Page H228]]
the date of enactment of this joint resolution, does not include
funding for an ongoing project or activity for which there is
a budget request, or whenever the rate for operations for an
ongoing project or activity provided by section 201 for which
there is a budget request would result in the project or
activity being significantly reduced, the pertinent project
or activity may be continued under the authority and
conditions provided in the applicable appropriations Act for
the fiscal year 1995 by increasing the rate for operations
provided by section 201 to a rate for operations not to
exceed one that provides the minimal level that would enable
existing activities to continue. No new contracts or grants
shall be awarded in excess of an amount that bears the same
ratio to the rate for operations provided by this section as
the number of days covered by this resolution bears to 366.
For the purposes of this title of this joint resolution, the
minimal level means a rate for operations that is reduced
from the current rate by 25 percent.
Sec. 212. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this joint resolution, except section 206, whenever the
rate for operations for any continuing project or activity
provided by section 201 or section 211 for which there is a
budget request would result in a furlough of Government
employees, that rate for operations may be increased to the
minimum level that would enable the furlough to be avoided.
No new contracts or grants shall be awarded in excess of an
amount that bears the same ratio to the rate for operations
provided by this section as the number of days covered by
this resolution bears to 366.
Sec. 213. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this joint resolution, except sections 206, 211, and 212,
for those programs that had high initial rates of operation
or complete distribution of funding at the beginning of the
fiscal year in fiscal year 1995 because of distributions of
funding to States, foreign countries, grantees, or others,
similar distributions of funds for fiscal year 1996 shall not
be made and no grants shall be awarded for such programs
funded by this title of this resolution that would impinge on
final funding prerogatives.
Sec. 214. This title of this joint resolution shall be
implemented so that only the most limited funding action of
that permitted in this title of this resolution shall be
taken in order to provide for continuation of projects and
activities.
Sec. 215. The provisions of section 132 of the District of
Columbia Appropriations Act, 1988, Public Law 100-202, shall
not apply for this title of this joint resolution.
Sec. 216. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this joint resolution, except section 206, none of the
funds appropriated under this title of this joint resolution
shall be used to implement or enforce any system of
registration of unmarried, cohabiting couples whether they
are homosexual, lesbian, heterosexual, including but not
limited to registration for the purpose of extending
employment, health, or governmental benefits to such couples
on the same basis that such benefits are extended to legally
married couples; nor shall any funds made available pursuant
to any provision of this title of this joint resolution
otherwise be used to implement or enforce D.C. Act 9-188,
signed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia on April 15,
1992.

TITLE III

VETERANS' BENEFITS

SEC. 301. ENSURED PAYMENT DURING FISCAL YEAR 1996 OF
VETERANS' BENEFITS IN EVENT OF LACK OF
APPROPRIATIONS.

(a) Payments Required.--In any case during fiscal year 1996
in which appropriations are not otherwise available for
programs, projects, and activities of the Department of
Veterans Affairs, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall
nevertheless ensure that--
(1) payments of existing veterans benefits are made in
accordance with regular procedures and schedules and in
accordance with eligibility requirements for such benefits;
and
(2) payments to contractors of the Veterans Health
Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs are made
when due in the case of services provided that directly
relate to patient health and safety.
(b) Funding.--There is hereby appropriated such sums as may
be necessary for the payments pursuant to subsection (a),
including such amounts as may be necessary for the costs of
administration of such payments.
(c) Charging of Accounts When Appropriations Made.--In any
case in which the Secretary uses the authority of subsection
(a) to make payments, applicable accounts shall be charged
for amounts so paid, and for the costs of administration of
such payments, when regular appropriations become available
for those purposes.
(d) Existing Benefits Specified.--For purposes of this
section, existing veterans benefits are benefits under laws
administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that have
been adjudicated and authorized for payment as of--
(1) December 15, 1995; or
(2) if appropriations for such benefits are available
(other than pursuant to subsection (b)) after December 15,
1995, the last day on which appropriations for payment of
such benefits are available (other than pursuant to
subsection (b)).

SEC. 302. EXPIRATION DATE.

Section 301 shall expire on January 3, 1996.

Motion offered by Mr. Livingston:
Mr. Livingston moves that the House concur in the Senate
amendment with an amendment, as follows:
(1) In lieu of the matter proposed by said amendment,
insert:

TITLE I

That the following sums are hereby appropriated, out of any
money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and out of
applicable corporate or other revenues, receipts, and funds,
for the several departments, agencies, corporations, and
other organizational units of Government for the fiscal year
1996, and for other purposes, namely:
Sec. 101. (a) Such amounts as may be necessary under the
authority and conditions provided in the applicable
appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995 for continuing
the following projects or activities including the costs of
direct loans and loan guarantees (not otherwise specifically
provided for in this Act) which were conducted in the fiscal
year 1995:
All nutrition services for the elderly under the account
heading ``Aging services programs'' under the Administration
on Aging in the Department of Health and Human Services;
All grants to States for child welfare services, authorized
by title IV, part B, subpart 1, of the Social Security Act,
under the account heading ``Children and families services
programs'' under the Administration for Children and Families
in the Department of Health and Human Services;
All Federal Parent Locator Service activities, as
authorized by section 453 of the Social Security Act, under
the account heading ``Children and families services
programs'' under the Administration for Children and Families
in the Department of Health and Human Services;
All State unemployment insurance administration activities
under the account heading ``State unemployment insurance and
employment service operations'' under the Employment and
Training Administration in the Department of Labor;
All general welfare assistance payments and foster care
payments, as authorized by law, funded under the account
heading ``Operation of Indian programs'' under the Bureau of
Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior;
All projects and activities funded under the account
heading ``Family support payments to States'' under the
Administration For Children and Families in the Department of
Health and Human Services;
All projects and activities funded under the account
heading ``Payments to States for foster care and adoption
assistance'' under the Administration For Children and
Families in the Department of Health and Human Services;
All administrative activities necessary to carry out the
projects and activities in the preceding two paragraphs;
All projects and activities funded under the account
headings ``Dual benefits payments account'', ``Limitation on
administration'' and ``Limitation on railroad unemployment
insurance administration fund'' under the Railroad Retirement
Board;
All projects and activities necessary to accommodate
visitors and to provide for visitor services in the National
Park System, the National Wildlife Refuges, the National
Forests, the facilities operated by the Smithsonian
Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, and the United States
Holocaust Memorial; and
All projects and activities necessary to process visas and
passports and to provide for American citizen services,
notwithstanding section 15 of the State Department Basic
Authorities Act of 1956: Provided, That whenever the amount
which would be made available or the authority which would be
granted under an Act which included funding for fiscal year
1996 for the projects and activities listed in this section
is greater than that which would be available or granted
under current operations, the pertinent project or activity
shall be continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the
current rate.
(b) Whenever the amount which would be made available or
the authority which would be granted under the Act which
included funding for fiscal year 1996 for the projects and
activities listed in this section as passed by the House as
of the date of enactment of this Act, is different from that
which would be available or granted under such Act as passed
by the Senate as of the date of enactment of this Act, the
pertinent project or activity shall be continued at a rate
for operations not exceeding the current rate or the rate
permitted by the action of the House or the Senate, whichever
is lower, under the authority and conditions provided in the
applicable appropriation Act for the fiscal year 1995.
(c) Whenever an Act which included funding for fiscal year
1996 for the projects and activities listed in this section
has been passed by only the House or only the Senate as of
the date of enactment of this Act, the pertinent project or
activity shall be continued under the appropriation, fund, or
authority granted by the one House at rate for operations not
exceeding the current rate or the rate permitted by the
action of the one House, whichever is lower, and under the
authority and conditions provide in the applicable
appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995.

[[Page H229]]

Sec. 102. Appropriations made by section 101 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner which would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 103. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 101 shall be used to
initiate or resume any project or activity for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available
during the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 104. No provision which is included in the
appropriations Act enumerated in section 101 but which was
not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 1995 and which by its terms is applicable to more than
one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to
any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this Act.
Sec. 105. Appropriations made and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this Act shall cover all
obligations or expenditures incurred for any program,
project, or activity during the period for which funds or
authority for such project or activity are available under
this Act.
Sec. 106. Unless otherwise provided for in this title of
this Act or in the applicable appropriations Act,
appropriations and funds made available and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this Act shall be available until
(a) enactment into law of an appropriation for any project or
activity provided for in this title of this Act, or (b) the
enactment into law of the applicable appropriations Act by
both Houses without any provision for such project or
activity, or (c) September 30, 1996, except for the projects
and activities under the headings ``Family support payments
to States'' and ``Payments to States for foster care and
adoption assistance'', for which date shall be March 15,
1996, whichever first occurs.
Sec. 107. Expenditures made pursuant to this title of this
Act shall be charged to the applicable appropriation, fund,
or authorization whenever a bill in which such applicable
appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained is enacted
into law.
Sec. 108. No provision in the appropriations Act for the
fiscal year 1996 referred to in section 101 of this Act that
makes the availability of any appropriation provided therein
dependent upon the enactment of additional authorization or
other legislation shall be effective before the date set
forth in section 106(c) of this Act.
Sec. 109. Appropriations and funds made available by or
authority granted pursuant to this title of this Act may be
used without regard to the time limitations for submission
and approval of apportionments set forth in section 1513 of
title 31, United States Code, but nothing herein shall be
construed to waive any other provision of law governing the
apportionment of funds.
Sec. 110. For the purposes of this title of this Act, the
time covered by the title of this Act shall be considered to
have begun on December 16, 1995.
Sec. 111. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act,
except section 106, funds appropriated under section 101 for
the payment of vested dual benefits under the Railroad
Retirement Act shall be made available so as to fully fund
the payments made on January 1, 1996, and the payments to be
made within the period covered by this Act including those
payments to be made on the first day of each month within the
period covered by this Act. In addition to the funds
appropriated under section 101 of this Act, $12,800,000 is
appropriated to restore full funding for payments made for
the period prior to January 1, 1996.
Sec. 112. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act,
except section 106, the authorities provided under subsection
(a) of section 140 of the Foreign Relations Authorization
Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 (Public Law 103-236) shall
remain in effect during the period of this Act,
notwithstanding paragraph (3) of said subsection.

TITLE II

Veterans Affairs

TITLE III

That the following sums are hereby appropriated, out of any
money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and out of
applicable corporate or other revenues, receipts, and funds,
for the several departments, agencies, corporations, and
other organizational units of Government for the fiscal year
1996, and for other purposes, namely:
Sec. 301. Such amounts as may be necessary under the
authority and conditions provided in applicable
appropriations Acts for the fiscal year 1995 for paying
salaries of Federal employees excepted from the provisions of
the Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. 1341 et seq.) who are
continuing projects and activities conducted in fiscal year
1995 who work during periods when there is otherwise no
funding authority for their salaries.
Sec. 302. Appropriations made by section 301 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner which would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 303. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 301 shall be used to
initiate or resume any project or activity for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available
during the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 304. No provision which is included in the
appropriations Act enumerated in section 301 but which was
not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 1995 and which by its terms is applicable to more than
one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to
any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this Act.
Sec. 305. Appropriations made and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this Act shall cover all
obligations or expenditures incurred for any program,
project, or activity during the period for which funds or
authority for such project or activity are available under
this Act.
Sec. 306. Unless otherwise provided for in this title of
this Act or in the applicable appropriations Act,
appropriations and funds made available and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this Act shall be available until
(a) enactment into law of an appropriation for any project or
activity provided for in this title of this Act, or (b) the
enactment into law of the applicable appropriations Act by
both Houses without any provision for such project or
activity, or (c) January 26, 1996, whichever first occurs.
Sec. 307. Expenditures made pursuant to this title of this
Act shall be charged to the applicable appropriation, fund,
or authorization whenever a bill in which such applicable
appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained is enacted
into law.
Sec. 308. No provision in the appropriations Act for the
fiscal year 1996 referred to in section 301 of this Act that
makes the availability of any appropriation provided therein
dependent upon the enactment of additional authorizing or
other legislation shall be effective before the date set
forth in section 306(c) of this Act.
Sec. 309. Appropriations and funds made available by or
authority granted pursuant to this title of this Act may be
used without regard to the time limitations for submission
and approval of apportionments set forth in section 1513 of
title 31, United States Code, but nothing herein shall be
construed to waive any other provision of law governing the
apportionment of funds.
Sec. 310. All Federal Employees Deemed To Be Excepted
Employees.
(a) In general.--Section 1342 of title 31, United States
Code, is amended for the period December 15, 1995 through
January 26, 1996--
(1) by inserting after the first sentence ``All officers
and employees of the United States Government or the District
of Columbia government shall be deemed to be performing
services relating to emergencies involving the safety of
human life or the protection of property.''; and
(2) by striking out the last sentence.
Sec. 311. Excepted Employees Under Normal Leave Policy.--
Federal employees considered excepted from furlough during
any period in which there is a lapse in appropriations with
respect to the agency activity in which the employee is
engaged shall not be considered to be furloughed when on
leave and shall be subject to the same leave regulations as
if no lapse in appropriations had occurred.
Sec. 312. Eligibility for Unemployment Compensation.--
Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, beginning on
January 2, 1996, any Federal employee who is excepted from
furlough and is not being paid due to a lapse in
appropriations shall be deemed to be

[[Page H230]]
totally separated from Federal service and eligible for unemployment
compensation benefits under subchapter I of chapter 85 of
title 5 of the United States Code with no waiting period for
such eligibility to accrue.
Sec. 313. For the purposes of this title, Federal employees
returning to work under the provisions of section 310 shall
be deemed to have returned to work at the first regularly
scheduled opportunity after December 15, 1995.
Sec. 314. Appropriations made pursuant to section 301 are
made notwithstanding section 15 of the State Department Basic
Authorities Act of 1956, section 701 of the United States
Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, section 313
of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994
and 1995 (Public Law 103-236), section 53 of the Arms Control
and Disarmament Act, and section 10 of Public Law 91-672.

TITLE IV

That the following sums are hereby appropriated, out of the
general fund and enterprise funds of the District of Columbia
for the District of Columbia for the fiscal year 1996, and
for other purposes, namely:
Sec. 401. (a) Such amounts as may be necessary under the
authority and conditions provided in the applicable
appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995 for continuing
projects or activities including the costs of direct loans
and loan guarantees (not otherwise specifically provided for
in this title of this Act) which were conducted in the fiscal
year 1995 and for which appropriations, funds, or other
authority would be available in the following appropriations
Act:
The District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 1996:
Provided, That whenever the amount which would be made
available or the authority which would be granted in this Act
is greater than that which would be available or granted
under current operations, the pertinent project or activity
shall be continued at a rate for operations not exceeding the
current rate.
(b) Whenever the amount which would be made available or
the authority which would be granted under the Act listed in
this section as passed by the House as of the date of
enactment of this Act, is different from that which would be
available or granted under such Act as passed by the Senate
as of the date of enactment of this Act, the pertinent
project or activity shall be continued at a rate for
operations not exceeding the current rate or the rate
permitted by the action of the House or the Senate, whichever
is lower, under the authority and conditions provided in the
applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995:
Provided, That where an item is not included in either
version or where an item is included in only one version of
the Act as passed by both Houses as of the date of enactment
of this Act, the pertinent project or activity shall not be
continued except as provided for in section 411 or 412 under
the appropriation, fund, or authority granted by the
applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995 and
under the authority and conditions provided in the applicable
appropriations Act for the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 402. Appropriations made by section 401 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner which would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 403. No appropriation or funds made available or
authority granted pursuant to section 401 shall be used to
initiate or resume any project or activity for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available
during the fiscal year 1995.
Sec. 404. No provision which is included in the
appropriations Act enumerated in section 401 but which was
not included in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 1995 and which by its terms is applicable to more than
one appropriation, fund, or authority shall be applicable to
any appropriation, fund, or authority provided in this title
of this Act.
Sec. 405. Appropriations made and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this Act shall cover all
obligations or expenditures incurred for any program,
project, or activity during the period for which funds or
authority for such project or activity are available under
this title of this Act.
Sec. 406. Unless otherwise provided for in this title of
this Act or in the applicable appropriations Act,
appropriations and funds made available and authority granted
pursuant to this title of this Act shall be available until
(a) enactment into law of an appropriation for any project or
activity provided for in this title of this Act, or (b) the
enactment into law of the applicable appropriations Act by
both Houses without any provision for such project or
activity, or (c) September 30, 1996, whichever first occurs.
Sec. 407. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this Act, except section 406, none of the funds
appropriated under this title of this Act shall be expended
for any abortion except where the life of the mother would be
endangered if the fetus were carried to term or where the
pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.
Sec. 408. Expenditures made pursuant to this title of this
Act shall be charged to the applicable appropriation, fund,
or authorization whenever a bill in which such applicable
appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained is enacted
into law.
Sec. 409. No provision in the appropriations Act for the
fiscal year 1996 referred to in section 401 of this title of
this Act that makes the availability of any appropriation
provided therein dependent upon the enactment of additional
authorizing or other legislation shall be effective before
the date set forth in section 406(c) of this Act.
Sec. 410. Appropriations and funds made available by or
authority granted pursuant to this title of this Act may be
used without regard to the time limitations of submission and
approval of apportionments set forth in section 1513 of title
31, United States Code, but nothing herein shall be construed
to waive any other provision of law governing the
apportionment of funds.
Sec. 411. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this Act, except section 406, whenever the Act listed in
section 401 as passed by both the House and Senate as of the
date of enactment of this Act does not include funding for an
ongoing project or activity for which there is a budget
request, or whenever the rate for operations for an ongoing
project or activity provided by section 401 for which there
is a budget request would result in the project or activity
being significantly reduced, the pertinent project or
activity may be continued under the authority and conditions
provided in the applicable appropriations Act for the fiscal
year 1995 by increasing the rate for operations provided by
section 401 to a rate for operations not to exceed one that
provides the minimal level that would enable existing
activities to continue. No new contracts or grants shall be
awarded in excess of an amount that bears the same ratio to
the rate for operations provided by this section as the
number of days covered by this Act bears to 366. For the
purposes of this title of this Act the minimal level means a
rate for operations that is reduced from the current rate by
25 percent.
Sec. 412. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this Act, except section 406, whenever the rate for
operations for any continuing project or activity provided by
section 401 or section 411 for which there is a budget
request would result in a furlough of Government employees,
that rate for operations may be increased to the minimum
level that would enable the furlough to be avoided. No new
contracts or grants shall be awarded in excess of an amount
that bears the same ratio to the rate for operations provided
by this section as the number of days covered by this Act
bears to 366.
Sec. 413. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this Act, except sections 406, 411, and 412, for those
programs that had high initial rates of operation or complete
distribution of funding at the beginning of the fiscal year
in fiscal year 1995 because of distributions of funding to
States, foreign countries, grantees, or others, similar
distributions of funds for fiscal year 1996 shall not be made
and no grants shall be awarded for such programs funded by
this title of this Act that would impinge on final funding
prerogatives.
Sec. 414. This title of this Act shall be implemented so
that only the most limited funding action of that permitted
in this title of this Act shall be taken in order to provide
for continuation of projects and activities.
Sec. 415. The provisions of section 132 of the District of
Columbia Appropriations Act, 1988, Public Law 100-202, shall
not apply for this title of this Act.
Sec. 416. Notwithstanding any other provision of this title
of this Act, except section 406, none of the funds
appropriated under this title of this Act shall be used to
implement or enforce any system or registration of unmarried,
cohabiting couples whether they are homosexual, lesbian,
heterosexual, including but not limited to registration for
the purpose of extending employment, health, or governmental
benefits to such couples on the same basis that such benefits
are extended to legally married couples; nor shall any funds
made available pursuant to any provision of this title of
this Act otherwise be used to implement or enforce D.C. Act
9-188, signed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia on
April 15, 1992.

TITLE V

Clarification of Certain Reimbursements

Sec. 501. Clarification of Reimbursement to States for
Federally Funded Employees.
(a) If a State used State funds to continue carrying out a
Federal program or furloughed State employees whose
compensation is advanced or reimbursed in whole or in part by
the Federal Government--
(1) such furloughed employees shall be compensated at their
standard rate of compensation for such period;
(2) the State shall be reimbursed for expenses that would
have been paid by the Federal Government during such period
had appropriations been available, including the cost of
compensating such furloughed employees, together with
interest thereon due under section 6503(d) of title 31,
United States Code; and
(3) the State may use funds available to the State under
such Federal program to reimburse such State, together with
interest thereon due under section 6503(d) of title 31,
United States Code.
(b) For purposes of this subsection, the term ``State''
shall have the meaning as such term is defined under the
applicable Federal program under subsection (a).
(c) The authority under this section applies with respect
to any period in fiscal year 1996 (not limited to periods
beginning or ending after the date of the enactment of this
Act) during which there occurs a lapse in appropriations with
respect to any department or agency of the Federal Government
which, but for such lapse in appropriations, would have paid,
or made reimbursement relating

[[Page H231]]
to, any of the expenses referred to in subsection (a) with respect to
the program involved. Payments and reimbursements under this
authority shall be made only to the extent and in amounts
provided in advance in appropriations Acts.
(2) Amend the title so as to read: ``Making appropriations
for certain activities for the fiscal year 1996, and for
other purposes''.

The text of House Concurrent Resolution 131 is as follows:

H. Con. Res. 131

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring),

SECTION 1. NOTIFICATION OF COMPLIANCE.

The Committee on House Oversight (pursuant to clause
4(d)(1) of rule X of the Rules of the House of
Representatives) shall not present to the President the joint
resolution (H.J. Res. 134) making further continuing
appropriations for the fiscal year 1996, and for other
purposes, until the Speaker of the House notifies that
committee that the requirements of this concurrent resolution
have been met.

SEC. 2. PRESIDENT'S SUBMISSION OF 7-YEAR BALANCED BUDGET.

The Speaker shall submit to the Committee on House
Oversight the notification described in section 1 only if the
following conditions have been satisfied:
(1) The President has submitted to the Congress a plan to
achieve a balanced total budget not later than fiscal year
2002, which includes the following:
(A) The proposed text of a budget plan for fiscal year 1996
and each fiscal year thereafter through fiscal year 2002 that
includes total new budget authority and budget outlays, total
Federal revenues, and new budget authority and budget outlays
for each major functional category, including a breakdown
between discretionary and mandatory spending within each such
category.
(B) The proposed text of legislation to implement the
budget described in subparagraph (A).
(C) A detailed summary setting forth the policies
underlying the budget described in subparagraph (A) and the
proposed legislation described in subparagraph (B).
(2) The Director of the Congressional Budget Office has
certified in writing to the Speaker of the House and the
President pro tempore of the Senate that the plan described
in paragraph (1) achieves a balanced total budget not later
than fiscal year 2002, as estimated by the Director using the
economic and technical assumptions specified in or consistent
with the Congressional Budget Office Memorandum entitled
``The Economic and Budget Outlook: December 1995 Update''.

SEC. 3. SUBMISSION OF COPY OF CONCURRENT RESOLUTION TO
PRESIDENT.

Upon the adoption of this concurrent resolution, the Clerk
of the House of Representatives shall transmit a copy to the
President.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kingston). The gentleman from New York
[Mr. Solomon] is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr.
Beilenson], pending which I yield myself such time as I might consume.
During consideration of the resolution all time yielded is for debate
purposes only.
Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order the adoption by the House of an
amendment to the Senate amendment to House Joint Resolution 134, a
continuing appropriations resolution for fiscal year 1996.
House Joint Resolution 134 was initially passed by the House back on
December 20. It dealt with emergency appropriations for veterans'
benefits. The resolution was passed by the Senate with an amendment on
December 22.
However, those veterans benefits were provided for in another
continuing resolution which this House adopted on December 22.
The House amendment which this rule would self-execute to adoption
would simply provide for a governmentwide continuing appropriation
through January 26, 1996.
The rule further provides for the self-executed adoption of House
Concurrent Resolution 131 introduced by the chairman of the Budget
Committee.
The concurrent resolution provides that the continuing resolution
shall not be transmitted to the President for his signature until the
Speaker notifies the Committee on House Oversight that the President
has submitted to the Congress a 7-year balanced budget as certified by
the Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. Speaker, the President could reopen the rest of this Government
today or tomorrow simply by sending us that 7-year balanced budget that
he and the Congress committed by law to enacting at the end of the
first session of this Congress--last Wednesday.
I regret that there has not been substantial movement in that
direction by the President since he signed that balanced budget pledge
into law last November 20.
It was therefore decided by our leadership and conference to provide
the President with an incentive to finally produce what he is legally
obliged to produce. That incentive is to reopen the entire Government
through January 26 if he takes this good-faith step in the direction of
a balanced budget.
Once the Congress and President are negotiating from the same
numbers, it should be much easier for those talks to reach a final
agreement on a balanced budget.
We have been reaching out to the President not once but twice today
to signal our good faith and willingness to get down to serious
negotiations. We have already voted to put Federal workers back to work
with pay and fund certain emergency programs. And now we are offering a
reopening of the rest of the Government.
The ball is now in the President's court. He can reopen the
Government. It won't require any heavy lifting since there are already
several balanced budget proposals in writing by members of his own
party. He need only bring one of them, send it to us, get it certified
by CBO, and the Government is reopened. It is just that simple.
Then, over the next few days the President and Congress can get down
to the real unfinished business from last year of giving the American
people the best gift we could--a brighter future for them and their
children and grandchildren by balancing our Nation's budget.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] for
yielding me the customary 30 minutes of debate time.
Mr. Speaker, we are pleased that the Republican leadership is finally
willing to allow the House to consider legislation which would reopen
all the Federal agencies that have been shut down and keep them open
until January 26. The continuing resolution that would be passed by
adoption of this rule is certainly far more rational and sensible than
the targeted continuing resolution that the House passed earlier today.
However, we oppose this self-executing rule because it prohibits the
House from considering any alternative version of the legislation,
including the alternative that we continue to believe is the best way
to end the Government shutdown, a continuing resolution that has no
conditions attached.
Under the terms of this rule, Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution
which would reopen the Government would be sent to the Senate only
after the Senate also agrees to requiring the President to submit a
plan that balances the budget in 7 years as is scored by the
Congressional Budget Office. In other words, after adopting this
continuing resolution it would stay here, in the House of
Representatives, until the Senate agrees to the terms of this plan.
Requiring the President to submit a balanced budget plan would most
certainly delay ending the shutdown because of the time it would
necessarily take for the White House to develop a plan and for CBO to
analyze it.
Our distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Solomon], has suggested that this measure would
allow the Government to be reopened perhaps as soon as Monday morning,
but that is probably a far too optimistic view.
Many of us on this side of the aisle, I would guess the majority of
us, would very much like to see an agreement on balancing the budget in
7 years. A number of us voted for a plan, the so-called coalition
budget that would, in fact, provide for a balanced budget in 7 years.
However, we think that requiring the President to submit a balanced
budget proposal is completely unnecessary and demeaning. Not only is
President Clinton fully committed to reaching agreement on a plan to
balance the budget in 7 years, but he has also personally spent
approximately 40 hours himself at the negotiating table pursuing that
goal. By all accounts the President is working extremely hard to
resolve the differences with Congress over the budget, and it is
insulting to him and to the majority of Americans who support his
position on this matter

[[Page H232]]
to demand that he do more than he is already doing simply as a price
for reopening the Government.
Mr. Speaker, it appears that finally nearly all of us are in
agreement that the Government shutdown should end. Let us just do it.
Let us stop the terrible and absurd waste of taxpayers' money and lost
government services that has resulted from the shutdown, a shutdown
that is costing $50 million, or thereabouts, each business day and
causing an incalculable amount of hardship and disruption, and let us
stop it as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question. If
the previous question is defeated, we shall offer an amendment. The
amendment would send the clean continuing resolution to the President
immediately, stopping the delay mechanism in the concurrent resolution
unless House Republicans live up to their part of the deal and lay on
the table a 7-year balanced budget that protects Medicare and Medicaid,
education, agriculture, national defense, and veterans. The last
continuing resolution made a commitment to enact a balanced budget that
provides adequate funding for all of those programs. Now the majority
are adding a new requirement, that the President must put forth a
proposal that meets the conditions for the measure to be enacted.

Mr. Speaker, we say to our colleagues on the majority side,

If you now would require the President to submit a proposal
in advance, it is only fair that you submit something in
advance that lives up to the agreed-upon goals.

The budget the President vetoed is woefully inadequate. The budget
submitted was vetoed precisely because it did not achieve the goals and
protect the programs the House Republicans committed to achieve and
protect. The effect of this new section is to provide for the immediate
transmission of a clean continuing resolution unless the House
Republicans can submit a new budget that does, in fact, meet those
goals.
This amendment would put the budget negotiations on terms that are
fair. The majority would have to decide either allow the continuing
resolution to go forward without delay or delay it until both the
President and the majority submit a balanced budget that meets the
terms of the budget negotiations that have already been agreed to.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

{time} 1645

Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
northern Virginia [Mr. Davis], an outstanding Member of this body from
close by.
Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, let me first of all say I am grateful we have gone part
of the way to opening up the Government. I want to go the full way. I
believe we ought to have a clean resolution. Barring that, I think this
is a very good step in that direction.
Let me just say, all we are saying here, as I understand it, there
would not have to be any unnecessary delays because there are a number
of balanced budget provisions that have been put out there by
Democratic Members of the House and Senate: the Blue Dog budget here in
the House, the Senate Democrats. If the President adopted any of those,
which have already been scored by CBO, we could open the Government by
Monday. I would ask the gentleman from New York, am I right?
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct. There
are now 21 days provided by this legislation. If the President were to
submit any one of those budgets, the full Government would be
functioning 10 minutes from now.
Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, this does not require the President, as I
understand it, to support any tax cut. He could have full funding for
Medicare. He could add money to Medicare over and above what the law
allows, add more money to the environment, add more money to education.
I guess the bottom line is it just requires the numbers to add up by
the year 2002. Is that correct?
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct.
Mr. DAVIS. My friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson],
who I think is a very able man, has mentioned that this would be
demeaning to the President to ask him to submit a balanced budget. I do
not think it is demeaning at all. He campaigned on it. We have
submitted our balanced budget. He has found tremendous fault with that,
which is his prerogative, but we need to have a dialog. It is very
difficult to engage in discourse, dialogue, and negotiation when the
goalposts keep getting moved back every time we get close. That is our
great frustration. If we could have the president to submit his budget,
we submit ours, and then we could move, I think that would help and
further the negotiation.
I would just say to my friend, the gentleman from New York, there is
nothing really to prevent the government from opening fully on Monday
if this were to pass, if the President were to embrace already one of
the plans that has been submitted by different Democratic groups in the
Congress.
Mr. SOLOMON. If the gentleman will continue to yield, that is
correct, Mr. Speaker. I am told that the Congressional Budget Office
could, even with a whole new proposal by the President, score it within
10 hours, and certainly if it is one that has already been scored they
could do it in a matter of minutes.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], our distinguished ranking member of the Committee
on Appropriations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, as we have heard many times today, a large
portion of the Government has now been closed for 21 days. We have just
passed a resolution which partially opens some of those agencies and
partially provides some of the services those agencies are supposed to
be providing.
Now we have before us a second proposition which says that the
Government will open fully between now and the end of January only if
the President submits a new budget which is balanced in 7 years, as
scored by the Congressional Budget Office. The justification of our
Republican friends for that position is that they claim that the
President agreed to do that when he signed the previous continuing
resolution.
That is not what the President agreed to do. The President and the
Congress both agreed to enact a resolution which balanced the budget in
7 years, as scored by CBO, provided that it met certain other tests.
This is the text of the agreement reached in the last budget
resolution. It says: ``The President and the Congress shall enact
legislation in the first session of the 104th Congress,'' and that is
already by the boards on both sides, ``to achieve a balanced budget no
later than fiscal year 2002, as estimated by the Congressional Budget
Office.''
However, what this resolution would do is knock out the rest of the
agreement. The rest of the agreement says that that 7-year balanced
budget amendment scored by CBO must adequately protect Medicare,
must adequately protect Medicaid, must adequately protect education,
must adequately protect the environment, must adequately protect
veterans services, and several other items.
They assert on the Republican side of the aisle that the President
has an obligation to offer as part of his negotiating position what he
agreed to sign onto as a final proposition. OK, let us take you at your
word. If you say that he has an obligation to do that, then all we want
you to do is to buy into our motion which we would offer if we can
defeat the previous question on the rule. We want you to buy into the
idea that you have a concurrent obligation to meet the same test,
because a lot of us on this side of the aisle are tired of seeing you
on your side of the aisle each day want to grade the President's
performance that day, when you will not be prepared to take the same
test you are asking him to take. All we want you to do is to say, ``OK,
what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.''
If the President is going to be required to submit a 7-year balanced
budget which meets the test of this agreement, then so are you. You
keep asking, ``Where is the President's 7-year balanced budget?'' We
ask, ``Where is yours? Where is your 7-year balanced budget that meets
these

[[Page H233]]
tests?'' You have submitted no budget so far that adequately protects
Medicare, that adequately protects States on Medicaid, that adequately
funds investments in education and the environment, and adequately
protects all veterans services.
You have not submitted any budget that meets that test, so all we are
saying is if you want the President to meet his half of that test, you
meet yours. You can vote for that by voting down the previous question
so we can offer our resolution.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting things in the
Republican budget is the change of capital gains. Forgetting the
merits, somehow it costs $9 billion in the year 2001, costs nothing in
the year 2002, when we are supposed to be in balance, and then costs
$10 billion in 2003. Is that not sort of a little weird, strange
arithmetic in 2002?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, it is the same kind of wackiness, it seems to
me, that has caused us to miss budget targets each year since Ronald
Reagan promised that if we just passed his budget, which we did, the
budget would be balanced in 4 years.
Mr. SABO. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would urge the House to vote against the
previous question on the rule so we can have an approach to this which
requires the same thing of the Republican majority that they want to
require of the President of the United States.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute and 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Georgia, Mr. John Linder, a distinguished member of the
Committee on Rules, on the capital gains tax cut.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, we just heard the colloquy on this side of the aisle
regarding capital gains, and the gentleman wonders how it could have a
$9 billion number 1 year, none the next year, and a $10 billion the
next year.
I do not know how CBO scores this, but no matter how it scores it, it
is wrong, because reducing capital gains every time we did it has
increased revenues. When Jimmy Carter cut the capital gains tax in 1977
there were $50 million in venture capital pools. The revenues from the
capital gains category increased in every succeeding year until 1986,
when the venture capital pools had more than $5 billion in them. That,
frankly, is what funded the increase in jobs during the Reagan
revolution.
When you raised the revenues in the capital gains category,
immediately the revenue fell off the table because it is too expensive
to transact business when the Government takes its large share out. We
know there is somewhere between $6 trillion and $9 trillion in this
country being held by mom and pop stores and farmers, and just people
who would like to sell their assets. There are $6 to $9 trillion being
held captive by the high cost of government that would become
transactions that would increase revenues dramatically in the capital
gains category, so the scoring system used by the CBO, the system is
wrong, and we would have more revenues than we ever dreamed. This
happened twice in the last 30 years. It will happen again. I thank the
gentleman for yielding time to me.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost].
(Mr. FROST asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, it is curious that suddenly we are at the end
of the day and we are going to be gone until the 23d. I had some
questions about why are we going to be gone until the 23d. I think I
have the answer. I would like to share with the House the Speaker's
fundraising schedule for the next 2 weeks.
On January 9 he will be in Colorado Springs, CO. On January 9, he
will be in Bloomington, MN. On January 10, he will be in Boise, and
then Indiana. On January 10 he will be in Seattle, WA. On January 11 he
will be in Baskerfield, CA. On January 12 he will be in Napa, CA. On
January 15 he will be in Detroit, where people are being charged
$10,000 to have their picture taken with the Speaker. He will also be
in Dallas, TX, on January 15.
On January 17 he will be in Fort Wayne, IN. On January 17 he will be
in Evanston, IN. On January 19 he will be in Knoxville, TN. On January
19 he will be in Memphis, TN.
There have been some questions about good-faith negotiating and
wanting to keep the President negotiating. It is going to be very
difficult, I would think, for the Speaker to negotiate with the
President while he is traveling around the country raising money for
Republican Members of Congress and for the Republican National Campaign
Committee. I know these are all tentative dates and something might
change in the schedule, but these have appeared in the press and there
have been discussions of these. The Speaker certainly has a very busy
schedule raising money in the next 2 weeks.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I
thank the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost] for advising us on the
Speaker's schedule. I know there are a great many people in this
country who are going to be interested in attending some of those
events.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from
Colorado [Mr. McInnis], a member of our committee.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, I wonder where the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost] is
going to be, chairman of the DCCC, what kind of fundraising he has been
attending in the last couple of months.
Mr. Speaker, I think that the people in this Chamber should be aware
of the fact that the gentleman from Texas is head of the DCCC, and
certainly he is out there doing fundraising under his duties as well.
That is the issue here. The issue is we have to get to a balanced
budget. Quit trying to divert on some of this sidelight stuff, unless
you want to implicate yourself.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost].
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman, I am not one of
the designated negotiators. I have not been designated by the
Democratic side to negotiate the budget. The Speaker is one of the
designated negotiators. Therefore, I would expect him to be here.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley], our distinguished ranking member of the
Committee on Rules.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for
yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, this rule is typical of the politics-as-usual we're
getting so used to these days.
Today, on the 21st day of the Federal Government shutdown, we are
looking at another attempt to back the President into a corner, to
force him to cut Medicare to pay for tax cuts, and he won't do it.
He won't get tripped up by the strings attached to this continuing
resolution and my Republican colleagues shouldn't even be bringing it
up.
As we are speaking, the Rules Committee is meeting to consider the
third continuing resolution to come before the House today. They say
three's a charm but from what I hear, Mr. Speaker, they still haven't
got it right.
This third continuing resolution opens up a few more Government
services, services that should not have been stopped in the first
place, but it does not go all the way.
My Republican colleagues say they want to run the Government like a
business. This business is making the former Soviet postal service look
good. Republicans are sending people back to work. And they are paying
people to go back to work, which they certainly should do, and which
they should have done 3 weeks ago. But they still won't let everyone do
their work.
They are willing to pay for meals for senior citizens, but will not
provide for their delivery. They will give us meals but no wheels and,
Mr. Speaker, that's not enough, the Government should be completely
opened, and it should be completely opened now.
It's time to do a clean continuing resolution. It's time to reopen
the Government, send everyone back to work, pay them, and let them do
their Jobs. At the rate we're going, the rate of a

[[Page H234]]
few programs a day, it will take about 3 weeks before the Government
reopens, and, Mr. Speaker, the American people want it open now.
My colleagues say they want the President to yield to their demands,
they want him to propose cuts in Medicare just as they have. But they
will not agree to his request to protect Medicare.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question. We
need a balanced budget but not at the expense of Medicare, education,
and the environment.

{time} 1700

Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would like to point out that Senator Domenici just called and said
when the Congressional Budget Office rescored our figures, they came up
with $135 billion, which added back to the very things our good friend,
Mr. Obey, was asking for: the environment, education, Medicare,
Medicaid.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, my
good friend [Mr. Lazio].
Mr. LAZIO of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New
York for yielding me this time.
I rise today in strong support of this continuing resolution that
requires the President to submit a CBO-scored balanced budget within 7
years. My friends, doublespeak in our Nation's Capital is alive and
well. We are expected to believe that the President now has to rush
around to put the numbers together for a balanced budget. Well, my
friends, the President's campaign pledge was to have a balanced budget
in 5 years; not in 7 years, not in 8 years, not in 10 years, but in 5
years.
My friends, let us get it straight. When the President signed the
continuing resolution in November, he signed a legal commitment to send
Congress a 7-year balanced budget, but 7 weeks have passed and we are
still waiting for him to live up to his promise.
In the past, the President has repeatedly said he supports a balanced
budget. He said he would support one in 10 years, 8 years, 9 years, 7
years and everything in between. But now it is time to recognize the
reality that in spite of all of the President's public rhetoric, he
does not now, probably never has, and most likely never will support a
balanced budget. So we have to operate in that reality.
We in Congress need to use the tools available to us under the
Constitution to help the President honor his commitment to the American
people and obey the law that he signed on November 20.
Earlier today we voted to bring unpaid Federal employees back to work
and to provide them with their back pay. We also helped to fund through
September 30 essential programs for seniors, veterans, the needy,
unemployed, as well as visa, passport and consular services for
American citizens abroad. By passing this continuing resolution before
us now, we will also fulfill our responsibility to reopen the
Government through January 26.
Mr. Speaker, we are acting in good faith to reopen the Government,
but we only ask that the President keep his word and submit a balanced
budget to the Congress, even using his own program priorities. The idea
that somehow we have to be mindreaders of the President and honor his
own priorities is absolutely absurd. Now it is up to the President to
fulfill his moral commitment and send us a balanced budget.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia [Mr. Moran].
Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, the Kendall School which is the predecessor
of Gallaudet University for the Deaf, has been fully funded by the
Federal Government since 1858. But because we did not do our job today,
it will close down, and those deaf children in kindergarten through
elementary school and high school will have to be sent home because we
did not do our job.
The East Coast Migrant Head Start Program just called the office.
Those children who are infants and small children, who have to be in
school because both of their parents are working out in the fields,
that program will be closed down because it is fully funded by the
Federal Government. What are those children going to do? What are their
parents going to do who have to be working in the fields?
We have not done our job, so we have to have a continuing resolution,
a full continuing resolution.
Obviously, it should not be tied to a 7-year balanced budget plan.
The majority leader of the Senate, Senator Dole understood that. All we
had to do was take his bill and everything would be all set now; we
would have done our job. But because we have extremists who say our way
or no way, we have not done our jobs. We have no business recessing
until we do it.
Now, I am going to vote for this resolution, and the reason is that I
do not think it is such a problem to have a 7-year balanced budget,
even using CBO numbers, because that is not the problem. I think the
President is going to submit a balanced 7-year plan with CBO numbers.
But it is not going to be one that the Republican side will accept,
because it will not gut the Medicare Program, it will not dismantle the
Medicaid Program. It will not cut student loans.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for an honest
question?
Mr. MORAN. If you will give me an extra 30 seconds to make my point,
I would be happy to. I will continue, because there may be other points
that the gentleman may wish to respond to.
I understand what the gentleman is going to say, that you do not have
to accept it, and that is why I am going to vote for the resolution,
because that is not the problem. When the President submits it, he is
not going to sacrifice Medicare and Medicaid and student loans and
environmental regulation, because you do not have to; because you do
not have to cut taxes by $245 billion or $200 billion or even $100
billion, and we should not.
Businesses do not pay out dividends when they are operating at a
loss, and we should not cut taxes when we are operating at a deficit.
If we are at a surplus and we can afford to, we can go ahead and do it.
We cannot now. That is why we are in the situation we are in now.
It was President Reagan's tax cut in 1981 that created the debt that
we are burdened with. That is why we are here, we are stuck, why the
Government is shut down. If it was not for the interest on the debt
that was accumulated by the 1981 tax cut, we would be in a surplus
today.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MORAN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to point out that the
revenues to the Treasury doubled between 1980 and 1990. Tax cuts
doubled revenues; that can add to debt.
Let me just say about the President's budget, the gentleman says it
was one that the Republicans could not agree with. That is not the
point. It is one that we want to negotiate.
That is what we have not had. We do not know where he stands, because
we have never seen a budget that he has put on the table, a balanced
budget in 7 years, with his priorities. All we want to do is say, you
can open the Government tomorrow, Mr. President; just put your
priorities on the table. We will then negotiate within those
parameters. That is all.
Mr. MORAN. I understand that, I say to the gentleman that I do not
think that is the problem. That is why I am going to vote for this
resolution, because the issue is not a 7-year balanced budget; the
issue is how you get there, whether you cut taxes when you cannot
afford to, and what we do to people dependent upon Medicare and
Medicaid and student loans. That is the issue. We ought to clarify the
issue.
I think that issue ought to be a national referendum. But in terms of
submitting the budget, I think that will be done, I think it should be
done, and I think that the Democrats will support that.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MORAN. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend from Virginia, there
was some reference to what was promised in 1981 and what happened. The
promise was that by 1984 the budget would be in balance. Instead, there
was a deficit of $175 billion. Reagan projected that revenues would be
19.3 percent of the gross national product by 1984; they

[[Page H235]]
were actually 18 percent because of the tax cut.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. In fact,
President Reagan, rightfully so, said that any President who cannot
submit a balanced budget ought to be impeached, and he never submitted
a balanced budget.
The problem with this plan that we have before us is that it
increases the deficit in the first year. In the first 3 years there is
virtually no reduction in the deficit. The last 3 years, we reduce it
every year. So we cannot support one that is fiscally responsible, but
we ought to have a balanced budget that is fiscally responsible.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte], someone who is probably more responsible for
forcing the President to bring a balanced budget to this body than
anyone I know, and we really appreciate the efforts of the gentleman.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his kind remarks
and for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, this is an effort on our part to open the Government
back up to show the President and the American people that we are doing
everything possible to negotiate in good faith, while moving forward on
our commitment to finally balance the Federal budget. It is always
easier to criticize a proposal, to complain without offering a positive
solution.
We, on the other hand, have worked very hard over the last 2 days in
fashioning this positive solution to get the Government back to work
and to balance our budget. That is what my goal has been as I have
worked to find a solution; that is what we are going to do here today.
Now it is time for the President to fulfill his responsibility.
Mr. Speaker, all that we ask is that President Clinton meet himself
halfway. He signed into law back in November an agreement that by the
end of the first session of the 104th Congress, 2 days ago, we would
have a balanced budget using CBO scoring. All we ask of him today is
that he put down his marker, that he tell us where his balanced budget
with CBO scoring is. Let us see what his priorities are.
We cannot settle this until we have the ability to compromise. You
cannot compromise when the other side does not have a position to
compromise with. So we are asking him to put it on the table and then
we can work this out and work out the priorities.
The President said when he ran that he could balance the budget in 5
years. He said during this crisis that we could balance the budget in 7
years. All we ask is that the President meet himself halfway by putting
his version of that on the table so that we can move this negotiating
process forward and fully reopen the government.
I am pleased that we have already voted to put Government workers
back to work. Now let us reopen the Government fully once the President
does what his responsibility is: Put your budget on the table.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas [Mr. Coleman].
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
I guess my question is, did you all put on blinders over there on the
Republican side of the aisle? Do you stick your head in the sand? You
stop reading when you want to stop reading, right? The agreement says,
in full, the only underlined part that I got from you all was the
President, according to the gentleman from Virginia, has to meet
himself halfway. That is it.
Is that it? Some negotiation. I thought that the Congress, the
Republican-led Congress of the United States was supposed to be at the
table presenting its budget that did the following. It is in the
agreement you signed, is it not?
It did the following: It is going to protect Medicare, Medicaid,
education, the environment, veterans.
Your budget was woefully inadequate. It did not do that and that is
why it got vetoed. You know that and I know that. Do not for 1 minute
come up here and tell us that only one person at the table has to meet
somebody halfway. That is not how it works.
I do not know in Virginia where you have been. I do not know if you
have served on a legislature or not or been in any other governmental
body, or been in any business that required compromise, but usually
compromise is when both people sit down and agree to meet.
The President has spent fully 40 hours in negotiations with the
Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. That is right. That
is what has happened. Some of us were around here when President Bush
met with Members of the Congress, and believe me, it did not probably
exceed 40 minutes. It was not any 40 hours; it was about 40 minutes.
So I want to tell my colleagues right now, this President of the
United States is seeking a balanced budget. In fact, his first budget
reduced the deficit by $700 billion. Nobody wants to talk about that
over there on your side, do they? You think this is a one-way street. I
am astounded that you stop reading the agreement when you want to stop
reading it. That is not the way to do business.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COLEMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
The fact of the matter is, we have a specific budget on the table
that you can look to.
Mr. COLEMAN. No, sir; I am going to reclaim my time. Let me reclaim
my time for this reason: Your budget did not protect Medicare and
Medicaid, the seniors, and the veterans. It did not. That is why it got
vetoed. It was absolutely slashing the budget for those people.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume,
just to point out to the previous speaker that we have bent over
backward to try to be fair to this President. We have told him that if
he will present a 7-year balanced budget, scored by CBO, we are not
going to dictate to him whether he has so many dollars for Medicare,
education or the environment, for defense or anything else. We simply
want him to put a balanced budget on the table so that we have dollars
and cents in each function that we can compare, so that we can sit down
and begin serious negotiations. That is what this debate is all about
here today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr.
Roth], a great fan of the Green Bay Packers.
Mr. ROTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, at some point we have to stop shouting at each other and
get down to business. I think this is a good bill, because it is a win/
win bill. You can say you won something; we on our side can say that we
have balanced the budget, and we have.
Now, the President has said that he is for a balanced budget, and we
did submit a balanced budget to the President, and he vetoed it.
Historically, the President has always presented a budget to the
Congress.

{time} 1715

All we are asking the President to do is to walk his talk. He has
made a commitment. Let him come forward with his budget.
The President vetoed the first balanced budget that we sent to him in
26 years. Now, no business, no family can operate in the red for 26
years like our Government has. Think about it. We pay $20 billion a
month, $20 billion a month to the bondholders. Do we want to sell our
children into financial bondage. I do not think so.
That is why this bill before us is a good bill. I have heard some of
the people on the other side of the aisle say they are going to vote
for this bill. I think it is a good positive step. We must start,
Republican and Democrat, to come together. Remember, two mountains can
never come together but two people always can. I think we can come
together.
I would like to see the President come forward with his balanced
budget. We cannot have everything. We cannot have everything on our
side. You quite frankly cannot have everything on your side. Every time
we make a good faith proposal, you keep moving the goal posts. Like my
good friend from New York had mentioned, the Green Bay Packers. Well, I
hope the Packers win tomorrow, but if 49'ers keep moving the goal
posts, keep changing the rules to suit the 49'ers the Packers can't
win. And so, too, here.

[[Page H236]]

We have got to have the same rules, my friends. We cannot have one
rule for one side and another rule for the other side. This is a good
bill. Vote for it. Do this for your kids and for the future of America.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].
Mr. SKAGGS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, if we are going to have an agreement--and I very much
want an agreement, I believe the President has demonstrated that he
very much wants an agreement, given the amount of time he has spent
trying to reach one--if we are going to get to an agreement, it is
going to take good faith and compromise on all sides.
I support a 7-year balanced budget. I voted for the coalition
proposal. I expect that is roughly where we are likely to end up in all
of this. But if that is what we want, this bill is not the way to get
there. Why not? Because it simply does not demonstrate the kind of good
faith that is going to be required if a negotiation will succeed.
A little while ago one of the reporters asked me this question: ``Is
this simply a way to box the President in?'' That is it. That is
exactly what it is. As many have pointed out, there were two conditions
in the November CR that were to have been met: one, a 7-year balanced
budget scored by CBO; second, paying greater respect to Medicare,
Medicaid, veterans, education, the environment, and so on.
Either both of these conditions have to be met ahead of time, before
negotiations begin, or neither of them need to be met ahead of time.
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say one must be met before we
start negotiations but we will only meet our side of the deal later on.
It is misleading and I think disingenuous to suggest that the President
has not honored the terms in the November agreement and will not honor
his promise.
If the President has to table the 7-year balanced budget scored by
CBO before we can make any progress, then so must the Republicans table
a new budget that addresses the questions of Medicare, Medicaid,
education and the environment. If you claim that you are obliged to
meet your part of the November bargain only at the end of the
negotiation, then that is when the President needs to meet his part of
the November agreement, You cannot have it both ways.
This bill, because it tries to have it in a one-sided way, will hurt,
not help, this process. We should defeat the previous question.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff].
Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution and of the bill. I
want to address first the charge that has been made on the House floor
that the Republicans are asking the President to agree to cuts in
Medicare or to some specific tax policy. It is absolutely not true. We
are asking the President to abide by the agreement that he made with
the Congress in November, which is to put out a balanced budget in a 7-
year timeframe, using the Congressional Budget Office economic
projections for such things as government revenue and inflationary
impact on programs.
The possibilities from that point are limitless. The President can
put the spending priorities on any program he wants. He can propose tax
reduction, he can propose tax increases or he can propose no change
whatsoever in the U.S. tax policy, as long as it meets the criteria of
7 years and Congressional Budget Office scoring.
The House reaffirmed its commitment to using the Congressional Budget
Office recently with 341 votes, and I hope all 341 of those Members,
Republicans and Democrats alike, will support this resolution.
I want to address the second point, that there is another part of the
agreement, and that part of the agreement that there be adequate
funding for certain programs. That is a correct statement. The problem
is, what is adequate funding for those programs?
There are several budgets already in existence that meet the 7-year
Congressional Budget Office requirement. The Republicans have offered a
budget. A number of Democrats have offered a budget on the House floor.
A number of Democrats have offered a balanced budget in the other body.
Which one of those budgets, if any, does the President believe meets
the requirement of adequate funding for programs? If none of them do,
here is the opportunity for the President to offer a balanced budget
proposal that shows us, with exact figures, how much spending there
should be for certain programs for him to call it adequate.
Without those figures on the floor, it is impossible to negotiate any
further, because it is impossible to determine what figures are the
exact amount of adequate funding.
The reasons negotiations have not been successful between the White
House and the President is that the Republican leadership has put out a
budget. I do not agree with all its provisions but they have done so.
The President has not put out a budget.
Once both sides have put out a budget that says we believe that this
is how we meet the priority in funding and under the 7-year
Congressional Budget Office economic projections, then the American
people can decide whose priorities they prefer. Until that happens,
negotiations can go on forever and they will never be productive.
Therefore, I urge passage of this resolution, passage of the bill,
and I respectfully urge the President of the United States to present
his budget so we can see his priorities.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
West Virginia [Mr. Wise].
Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, in all this quibbling that is going on about
what was the language in the November 20 resolution, whether it was 7
years, CBO, or whether you should pay attention to the protection of
the programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, I am struck by
misdirection. Because if the goal here is to punish the President for
not coming forward, it seems to me the wrong people are getting
punished.
If you want to punish the President, the way to do that is to say
that half the Head Start children are not going to be able to go to
Head Start? If you want to punish the President you instead deny small
businesses loan guarantees, $40 million a day? You want to punish the
President, so you go ahead and make it rough on Federal workers after
January 26? You want to punish the President, so you deny Medicare
vendors getting paid denying services to senior citizens? This is a
pretty tough crowd if that is the way you think you punish the
President.
The fact of the matter is it is like a carrot and a stick. This is
the first organization I have ever seen, the carrot and the stick, the
old thing where you have got the horse out in front of the wagon, you
hold the carrot in front of the horse, then you have got people on the
wagon trying to get the horse to move forward. In this crowd if the
carrot does not work they turn around and shoot all the passengers on
the wagon.
The fact is, let us do this out of mutual respect. The thing to do is
go back into negotiations. I am a bit offended when I hear the
President has not negotiated in good faith.
I was here in 1990 when President Bush and Republicans and Democrats
had the budget summit, many, many days. This President has spent 40
hours meeting with Republican leaders at the White House. If President
Bush measured his time in minutes meeting with those conferees, I will
be very, very surprised. Forty hours. Second, if there is no
Presidential budget, then what was it we voted on the floor about 2
weeks ago in which the Republican leadership took great glee in putting
on the floor and having everybody vote against it, calling it the
President's budget? What is it that is being discussed in these 40
hours of negotiations? I hear figures coming back, somebody has come
down on Medicare, somebody has come down on taxes, so clearly
negotiations are taking place.
Mr. Speaker, the American people are smart enough to know whether
there are good-faith negotiations, they are smart enough to measure the
result. Do not punish the American people for the frustrations that may
be on both sides.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to one of the real
leaders of this House, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], the whip
for the majority. We would be interested in what he has to say.

[[Page H237]]

Mr. DeLAY. I thank the chairman and I appreciate the good work that
he and his committee do, under terribly tough circumstances.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conditional continuing
resolution. Republicans call this a conditional CR because it goes into
effect based upon one simple condition, that the President present a
certified budget that reaches balance in 7 years. I call this
legislation the trust-but-really-verify temporary spending resolution.
We have tried other approaches before, as the people know, and those
approaches have failed to dislodge this President from his defense of
the status quo. All we are asking is for Bill Clinton to give fiscal
responsibility a chance. But we have heard through the grapevine that
the President will work to oppose this bill based on his opposition to
a real balanced budget. If the President actively opposes this CR, he
presents the American people a vivid contrast between his words and his
deeds.
He of course has mouthed with numbing regularity his support for the
goal of a balanced budget. But he has worked to kill every balanced
budget initiative, including the balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution and the coalition balanced budget with every ounce of his
being.
President Clinton may think he can fool all the people all the time
but if he fails to fulfill the conditions of this continuing
resolution, he will finally be unmasked as the big-spending liberal
that he really is.
The President has the ability to either put up a balanced budget or
shut down the Federal Government once again.
I just urge my colleagues to give the President a chance to expose
his true intentions. Pass this conditional CR and let us see if the
President will ever present a real balanced budget.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the
distinguished gentleman from the home of the Independence Bowl,
Shreveport, LA [Mr. McCrery], of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. McCRERY. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to negotiate when one of the parties will not
put on the table an opening offer.
Therefore, this House tonight will pass a resolution which will
implicitly ask the question that the press and the media in this
country should have been asking for the last several weeks:
Mr. President, where is your balanced budget?
Mr. President, where is your balanced budget?
Mr. President, where is your balanced budget?
Mr. President, where is your balanced budget?
Mr. President, where is your balanced budget?
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
North Carolina [Mr. Hefner].
Mr. HEFNER. ``Where is your balanced budget?'' That is a nice speech,
Mr. Speaker. It should make the news tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to make one point. My friend from Texas in
his closing remarks, he said the President puts a budget on the table
and we can negotiate but what we are hearing coming out of
negotiations, the conditions are set down that the Speaker has said
that he will not let a budget come to the floor here that cannot get
218 Republican votes.

{time} 1730

The majority leader says that there is no budget going to pass this
House if the taxes are changed. So some negotiations you have got
there.
And the gentleman from Texas says, ``Mr. President, if you do not do
what we want to do on our terms, we will shut the country down again.''
So what we are going to do, what we have here, you are going to have a
recess where the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] can go raise a
lot of money and we are going to have the people dispersing, going on
trips and what have you, and saying we have put the ball in the
President's court, and then, ``If you don't do it like we want it, we
will shut the Government down and put people out of work and
inconvenience the American public,'' and ``that ain't right.''
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker], vice chairman of the
Committee on the Budget and chairman of the Committee on Science.
Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Back in November the President made a promise in law that he would
produce a balanced budget, he would enact a balanced budget by January
3. That was a guarantee that we thought he meant. Maybe we were wrong.
Maybe he did not really mean it. Maybe he thought that negotiations
would suffice for producing a balanced budget, that maybe there were
all kinds of confusions that resulted from this.
One of the confusions there should not be is nobody has ever
suggested that the President needed to produce a balanced budget on our
terms. All we have ever asked the President to do is produce a balanced
budget that fits his terms. We want his balanced budget. We are willing
to negotiate with him based upon what we say should be in a balanced
budget and what he says is in a balanced budget. But you cannot
negotiate with nothing.
We are asking the President in this CR to put forward his balanced
budget. As soon as his balanced budget, scored by CBO, is certified at
the desk, he will get a continuing resolution to do what he says is
important, and that is to put the full operation of the Federal
Government back in place until January 26.

If the President signed that law making a promise that he would
produce a balanced budget, there should be absolutely no problem with
him signing this CR and sending us his balanced budget. No problem at
all. Why would there be a problem? All we are saying to him is, ``Do
what you told us you would do 45 days ago,'' and then the Government
can be reopened, all the programs can be functioning, and there is no
problem.
But if the President does not send a balanced budget and does not
bring the Government back up, we will know that what he signed in
November was simply a charade, that he had no intention of producing a
balanced budget, that he has no intention in the future of producing a
balanced budget.
If you vote against this rule and vote against this item, what you
are saying is we have no intention of producing a balanced budget.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons].
Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I think everyone knows that this particular
resolution is going absolutely nowhere. It will go to the Senate, and
they will never consider it.
But I think we ought to tell the truth about what we are talking
about. Balancing the budget in 7 years requires the reduction of
expenditures of about $750 billion, a doable amount. Where we really
disagree is the method in which that money is subtracted from the
budget.
The Republicans' priorities, as I read them, put the balance of the
budget burden upon the elderly sick, the young sick, the elderly in
general, upon the working poor, and to a certain extent upon middle-
class America. The thing that is causing all of this trouble but no one
will really admit is the proposal to reduce taxes by $250 billion on
the Republican side, and the President's mistake of reducing taxes
about $100 billion. That makes the balancing of the budget extremely
cruel. You have got to do some things that you would not do if you were
operating in a normal environment.
So both sides ought to throw on the floor and put behind them the
reduction of taxes during this period of time. It is a shame that we
are in this environment.

I do not think we ought to go home. I think we ought to stay here and
continue working on the substance of all of this.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from San Diego, CA [Mr. Cunningham], a truly great American who has
served in our Armed Forces.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle said that the contract was signed by both, and there are some
things that we need to attend to in Medicare and education and so on.
Let me cover the education facts. As a subcommittee chairman on
education, I think there is a difference on

[[Page H238]]
what is really good. We increased student loans by 50 percent. We
increased Pell grants to the highest level ever.
But what we did not protect is your precious bureaucracy that only
allows 23 cents on a dollar to get down into the classroom because of
that bureaucracy.
We eliminated the President's direct student loan program, that,
according to GAO, cost a billion dollars more must to administer, and
those fees are not even calculated on what it cost to receive those
monies. You want the power here. We have eliminated the bureaucracy and
the power.
Goals 2000, you say, ``Well, look, you cut Goals 2000.'' On a Federal
level where you have Federal control instead of the State, yes, we did.
Goals 2000, there are 45 instances that say State will, and you have
got to have groups and members in different groups that put together
the requirements. It is only voluntary if you do not want the money.
But yet we send the money directly back to the State, and if a State
wants to do Goals 2000, they can.
The Department of Education, $32 billion in its budget, and the
President's direct loan program would make it the largest lending
institution, if he had this way, in the United States. That is wrong.
We have protected education.
Your welfare system has failed education.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Engel].
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time
to me.
Let me just say that I am going to vote against this rule and against
this resolution because I consider this to be political chicanery of
the worst kind, an arrogant attempt to tell the President, ``Play by my
rules or we won't play at all.'' That is what the majority party is
doing. It is an attempt to trap the President, to rape the President,
to say again, ``If we think that you are doing what we deem you ought
to be doing, then we will open the Government, but if we do not, then
we will keep it shut.''
You know, my colleagues, it took 12 years of Reagan and Bush budgets
to get us into this mess of deficits, and it is going to take 7 years
to get us out of it.
The President agreed to support a 7-year balanced budget as an end
product of the negotiations. But the Republicans also agreed to protect
Medicare and Medicaid and education and the environment, things that we
believe are dead in their budget. Their budget kills Medicare and kills
Medicaid and kills the environment and hurts working families and kills
education.
We have not seen them change their budget. That was supposed to be
part of their end of the deal.
So this is simply trying to change the rules. It is an attempt to
shift the dialog because the Republicans are taking a beating for
shutting the Government down, and so they need to try to shift the
dialog, and by trying to shift it, they are saying to the President,
``We demand that you produce a balanced budget according to our rules,
not as you agreed to the end game.'' We ought not to play by these
games or by these rules.
This is only going to come out of both sides getting together,
working together for a compromise.
Reject this nonsense, this chicanery.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Kentucky [Mr. Rogers]. The State of Kentucky has a lot of outstanding
Congressmen, as you know, sir, but the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr.
Rogers] is one who is very outstanding, our good friend from Somerset,
KY, a member of the Committee on Appropriations, doing an outstanding
job.
Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time
to me.
Mr. Speaker, we have had enough of the blame game on who is to blame
for shutting down the Government. You say it is our fault. We say it is
your fault, the President's fault.
This resolution settles it all. This is the end game here. What this
resolution says is regardless of who caused the shutdown, we are
prepared to end it, Mr. President. All we want to do, as we have been
doing for months now, is just put your offer on the table. How can you
make a deal for a piece of land if you go to the owner and say, ``I am
willing to pay you $1,000 an acre,'' and he says, ``I want to sell it
to you,'' and you say, ``How much do you want for it,'' and he says,
``I am not going to tell you.'' How can you negotiate if you cannot get
the other party to put some offer on the table?
All this resolution does, Mr. Speaker, is to say we are willing to
open up the entire Government, business as usual, provided, Mr.
President, you tell us what your balanced budget proposal is. It does
not matter how you come up with it so long as it balances in 7 years
using CBO numbers. Then we can negotiate.
As it stands now, we simply cannot negotiate with you. You will not
tell us what you want for your acre of land.
So this resolution is calculated to finally decide who is at fault
with keeping the Government shut down. We are saying open it up
entirely, and all you have got to do to do that, Mr. President, is just
lay on the table your proposal for a balanced budget in 7 years so that
we can negotiate in good faith. We are asking for good faith, Mr.
President, and this is the only way we know how to do it.
If there is a better way, please tell us and we will try to do that.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Texas [Mr. de la Garza].
(Mr. de la GARZA asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I am concerned that we
are again dealing in a vacuum with numbers only. We are not attaching
faces and places. The debate and the obsession about what the President
did or did not do is leaving out what we should be discussing.
I am going to attach one name to this discussion. Her name is Elisa
Izquierdo, a little girl that died in New York for lack of attention,
that what we do here could take away from other children, and I quote
from an article that I am putting at this point in the Record, ``How
Cold Is America Prepared To be? How much can you take from children who
have so little?''
We should attach names, faces and places and get over this obsession
of what the President did or did not do.
Mr. Speaker, concerning the debate on what we do as a Congress to
protect the children of our country we share with you an article by
Jonathan Kozol. I would like to strongly recommend the last paragraph
which reads as follows:

Like most Americans, I do not tend to think of a society
that has been good to me and to my parents as ``evil.'' But
when he said that ``somebody has power,'' it was difficult to
disagree. It is possible that icy equanimity and a self-
pacifying form of moral abdication by the powerful will take
more lives in the long run than any single drug-addicted and
disordered parent. Elisa Izquirdo's mother killed only one
child. The seemingly anesthetized behavior of the U.S.
Congress may kill thousands. Now we are told we must `get
tougher' with the poor. How much tougher can we get with
children who already have so little? How cold is America
prepared to be?

Mr. Speaker, I am enclosing the article at this point, as follows:

[From the Time magazine, Dec. 11, 1995]

Spare Us the Cheap Grace

(By Jonathan Kozol)

It is hard to say what was more shocking about the death of
Elisa Izquierdo--the endless savagery inflicted on her body
and mind, or the stubborn inaction of the New York City
agencies that were repeatedly informed of her peril. But
while the murder of Elisa by her mother is appalling, it is
hardly unexpected. In the death zones of America's postmodern
ghetto, stripped of jobs and human services and sanitation,
plagued by AIDS, tuberculosis, pediatric asthma and endemic
clinical depression, largely abandoned by American physicians
and devoid of the psychiatric services familiar in most
middle-class communities, deaths like these are part of a
predictable scenario.
After the headlines of recrimination and pretended shock
wear off, we go back to our ordinary lives. Before long, we
forget the victims' names. They weren't our children or the
children of our neighbors. We do not need to mourn them for
too long. But do we have the right to mourn at all? What does
it mean when those whom we elect to public office cut back
elemental services of life protection for poor children and
then show up at the victim's funeral to pay condolence to the
relatives and friends? At what point do those of us who have
the power to prevent these deaths forfeit the entitlement of
mourners?
It is not as if we do not know what might have saved some
of these children's lives. We know that intervention programs
work when well-trained social workers have a lot of time to
dedicate to each and every child. We

[[Page H239]]
know that crisis hot lines work best when half of their employees do
not burn out and quit each year, and that social workers do a
better job when records are computerized instead of being
piled up, lost and forgotten on the floor of a back room. We
know that when a drug-addicted mother asks for help, as many
mothers do, it is essential to provide the help she needs
without delay, not after a waiting period of six months to a
year, as is common in poor urban neighborhoods.
All these remedies are expensive, and we would demand them
if our own children's lives were at stake. And yet we don't
demand them for poor children. We wring our hands about the
tabloid stories. We castigate the mother. We condemn the
social worker. We churn out the familiar criticisms of
``bureaucracy'' but do not volunteer to use our cleverness to
change it. Then the next time an election comes, we vote
against the taxes that might make prevention programs
possible, while favoring increased expenditures for prisons
to incarcerate the children who survive the worst that we
have done to them and grow up to be dangerous adults.
What makes this moral contradiction possible?
Can it be, despite our frequent protestations to the
contrary, that our society does not particularly value the
essential human worth of certain groups of children?
Virtually all the victims we are speaking of are very poor
black and Hispanic children. We have been told that our
economy no longer has much need for people of their caste and
color. Best-selling authors have, in recent years, assured us
of their limited intelligence and low degree of
``civilization development.'' As a woman in Arizona said in
regard to immigrant kids from Mexico, ``I didn't breed them.
I don't want to feed them''--a sentiment also heard in
reference to black children on talk-radio stations in New
York and other cities. ``Put them over there,'' a black
teenager told me once, speaking of the way he felt that he
and other blacks were viewed by our society. ``Pack them
tight. Don't think about them. Keep your hands clean. Maybe
they'll kill each other off.''
I do not know how many people in our nation would confess
such contemplations, which offend the elemental mandates of
our cultural beliefs and our religions. No matter how
severely some among us may condemn the parents of the poor,
it has been an axiom of faith in the U.S. that once a child
is born, all condemnations are to be set aside. If we now
have chosen to betray this faith, what consequences will this
have for our collective spirit, for our soul as a society?
There is an agreeable illusion, evidenced in much of the
commentary about Elisa, that those of us who witness the
abuse of innocence--so long as we are standing at a certain
distance--need not feel complicit in these tragedies. But
this is the kind of ethical exemption that Dietrich
Bonhoeffer called ``cheap grace.'' Knowledge carries with it
certain theological imperatives. The more we know, the harder
it becomes to grant ourselves exemption. ``Evil exists,'' a
student in the South Bronx told me in the course of a long
conversation about ethics and religion in the fall of 1993.
``Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they
don't need to use it to help people--that is my idea of
evil.''
Like most Americans, I do not tend to think of a society
that has been good to me and to my parents as ``evil.'' But
when he said that ``somebody has power,'' it was difficult to
disagree. It is possible that icy equanimity and a self-
pacifying form of moral abdication by the powerful will take
more lives in the long run than any single drug-addicted and
disordered parent. Elisa Izquierdo's mother killed only one
child. The seemingly anesthetized behavior of the U.S.
Congress may kill thousands. Now we are told we must ``get
tougher'' with the poor. How much tougher can we get with
children who already have so little? How cold is America
prepared to be?

Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me simply urge my colleagues to vote
``no'' on the previous question.
If the previous question is defeated, we shall offer an amendment
that would send a clean continuing resolution to the President
immediately, stopping the delaying mechanism in the concurrent
resolution unless House Republicans live up to their part of the deal
and lay on the table a 7-year balanced budget that actually protects
Medicare, Medicaid, education, agriculture, national defense, veterans
and others. The amendment would put the budget negotiations on terms we
believe are fair.
The majority would have to decide either to let the continuing
resolution go forward without delay or delay it until both the
President and majority submit a balanced budget that meets the terms of
the budget negotiations that have already been agreed to.
Mr. Speaker, in ending, I am inserting at this point in the Record
the amendment I intent to offer if the previous question is defeated.
The proposed amendment is as follows:

Amendment to the Rule on H.J. Res. 134

In section 2 of the resolution, after ``House Concurrent
Resolution 131'', insert ``, as modified by the amendment in
section 4 of this resolution,''.
At the end of the resolution add the following:
``Sec. 4. At the end of the concurrent resolution self-
executed by section 3 of this resolution, add the following
new section:
``Sec. --. The preceding sections delaying the transmission
of the joint resolution shall have no effect and the joint
resolution shall be promptly transmitted to the President
unless the Majority Leader, on behalf of all House
Republicans, causes to be printed in the Congressional Record
a new seven-year balanced budget in accordance with the
strictures set forth in section 203 of Public Law 104-56 such
that the Republican budget achieves ``a balanced budget not
later than fiscal year 2002 as estimated by the Congressional
Budget Office and, unlike the reconciliation measure vetoed
by the President, H.R. 2491, ``protects future generations,
ensures Medicare solvency, reforms welfare and provides
adequate funding for Medicaid, education, agriculture,
national defense, veterans, and the environment * * * [and]
adopts tax policies to help working families and to stimulate
future economic growth.''.''''

Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, we have spent a lot of time, both sides, throwing arrows
at each other, blaming each other.
Let me quote from an editorial which is not Republican or Democrat.
It is a liberal newspaper, usually. It is the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The headline on this editorial says, ``Your Turn, Bill. Clinton Must
Offer the Serious Budget He Promised.''

{time} 1745

The text of the editorial goes on to say, ``The country is still
waiting for Mr. Clinton's plan.''
The last paragraph of this editorial says, ``Congress should pass
stopgap funding as soon as the President provides the missing
ingredient of serious bargaining: A credible White House plan to
balance the budget in seven years.''
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we are doing. The last paragraph of
this editorial from a liberal newspaper in Philadelphia. We are
offering a clean resolution, which is what everyone has been asking
for.
This clean resolution puts all of the Government back to work, all of
the employees, all of the functions of Government, but it holds that
bill here at the desk until the President does what the last paragraph
of this editorial says, until the President gives us a balanced budget
certified to be balanced by the Congressional Budget Office in 7 years.
It is as simple as that.
Our Speaker Gingrich has bent over backwards trying to cooperate with
the President. So has Senator Dole. Yet no progress has been made. This
gives all of them 21 more days without any problem in between to allow
them to sit down, give each other their figures, and let us get down to
some serious negotiations and do what the American people want.
Every day we stand here, the interest to pay on that national debt
goes up $667 million. That is so uncompassionate. Think what we could
do for people with $667 million a day extra if we did not have this
deficit.
I ask Members to come and vote for the previous question, and then
vote for this bill. I believe that Senator Daschle in the other body is
going to accept this and send it on to the President. Let us not try to
stop him from doing that.
Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bunning of Kentucky). The question is on
ordering the previous question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 226,
nays 183, not voting 24, as follows:

[Roll No. 9]

YEAS--226

Allard
Archer
Bachus
Baker (CA)
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner

[[Page H240]]

Bonilla
Bono
Brownback
Bryant (TN)
Bunn
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Clinger
Coble
Coburn
Collins (GA)
Combest
Cooley
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cremeans
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis
Deal
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Flanagan
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frisa
Funderburk
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Graham
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Heineman
Herger
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Livingston
LoBiondo
Longley
Lucas
Manzullo
Martini
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Meyers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Moorhead
Morella
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Oxley
Packard
Parker
Paxon
Petri
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Riggs
Roberts
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Schaefer
Schiff
Seastrand
Sensenbrenner
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stump
Talent
Tate
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Torkildsen
Upton
Vucanovich
Waldholtz
Walker
Walsh
Wamp
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer

NAYS--183

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews
Baesler
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Bentsen
Bevill
Bishop
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Cardin
Clay
Clement
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Danner
de la Garza
DeFazio
DeLauro
Dellums
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doyle
Durbin
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fields (LA)
Filner
Flake
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Geren
Gibbons
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Holden
Hoyer
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
Kildee
Kleczka
Klink
LaFalce
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lincoln
Lipinski
Lowey
Luther
Maloney
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran
Murtha
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Orton
Owens
Pallone
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Peterson (FL)
Peterson (MN)
Pickett
Pomeroy
Poshard
Rahall
Rangel
Reed
Richardson
Rivers
Roemer
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skelton
Slaughter
Spratt
Stenholm
Stokes
Stupak
Tanner
Taylor (MS)
Tejeda
Thompson
Thurman
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Traficant
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Ward
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Williams
Wise
Woolsey
Wynn
Yates

NOT VOTING--24

Armey
Baker (LA)
Berman
Bryant (TX)
Chapman
Chrysler
Clayton
Fazio
Fields (TX)
Hayes
Johnston
Lightfoot
Lofgren
Montgomery
Myers
Quillen
Rose
Scarborough
Stark
Stockman
Studds
Thornton
Wilson
Wyden

{time} 1806

The Clerk announced the following pair:
On the vote:

Mr. Armey for, with Mr. Johnston of Florida against.

So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bunning of Kentucky). The question is on
the resolution.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 2 of House Resolution
336, House Concurrent Resolution 131 is considered adopted.

____________________