[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 10 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H855-H856]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONTINUING RESOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. There are not many on the 
floor again. We are not doing anything. Day before yesterday we did a 
few minor bills. Yesterday we did one conference report that everybody 
basically agreed with, very few Members disagreed with.
  What have we done so far today? Nothing. What are we going to do 
today? I do not know.
  Talk about lunacy. A mental institution, that is what this is. I 
never saw any place that operates like this. There is one Member, we 
are supposed to take up a continuing resolution today to continue the 
operations of the Federal Government that are not funded because the 
Republicans have not passed the appropriation bills. They have been 
working behind closed doors, some of them, maybe 5 or 10 of them at the 
most, not one Democrat, not one member of the public, not one member of 
the media been working on that bill. Nobody knows what is in it.
  I have been told that there is one Democrat, one that just recently 
got a copy of what he thinks might be the latest version, which has 
gone through many changes on what they are proposing to do this 
afternoon to keep the Federal Government open.
  It is very easy. All they have to do is come up here with a 
resolution that is clean and says that the Government shall be funded, 
those that are not shall be funded continuously for another 30 days, 60 
days, up to September 30, anything they want to do. That is all they 
have to do. And it will pass here overwhelmingly. It will pass the 
Senate and the President will sign it and we can get out of here. But, 
no, not the way they are going to do it. It is lunacy.
  What they are going to do is come up here with something nobody has 
seen. I doubt if one Member that is sitting here form the other party 
can tell me what is in that resolution. The gentleman from Michigan, 
can you tell me? No. The other gentleman from Michigan? No. None of 
them can. They cannot tell us. They do not know what is in it. I will 
yield to them. I want them to tell me what is in that continuing 
resolution.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  
[[Page H856]]

  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding to me.
  I wanted you to know, it is not totally perfected yet. It is a 
continuing resolution. My understanding is it will go to March 15. It 
takes those appropriation bills the President has vetoed. It reinstates 
some of that funding to give the President another chance to keep 
Government open. It takes targeted legislation at appropriations that 
are going to extend all the way through the rest of this fiscal year.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Do you know the ones that are being targeted and the 
ones that are not being targeted?
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I think the argument is still 
going on, including Democrats in that argument, but the fact is, no, I 
do not know the final resolution of that bill.
  Mr. VOLKMER. None of us know.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, I serve on the Committee on Appropriations, 
and I have been to quite a few meetings. When were these appropriations 
bills due?
  Mr. VOLKMER. They were due to be done by September 30. We all know 
that. The American public does not know. They think that we as 
Democrats have had something to do with the closing of the Federal 
Government. We do not have anything to do with it. We cannot write the 
legislation. We cannot bring the legislation. It is only those 
Republican members who can do it.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, there was a rumor out earlier today, they 
seem to persist around here, that they were on the 30th resolution of 
this CR and had not come up with one that is acceptable even for the 
Republican Party.
  Mr. VOLKMER. The 30th draft.
  Mr. HEFNER. Hopefully we will get there when we get to----
  Mr. VOLKMER. I would just like to mention one other thing, folks, 
that is going on here that they are planning to do, this great majority 
that is running this Congress. They cannot get a dang thing done. I 
could use a harder word but it is not permissible on the House floor.
  They did not do anything the first session. You can look at the total 
bills that they passed. It is the worst record since 1933. Do you know 
what these, I do not know what you call them, people are proposing to 
do today? They are going to finally bring in something here that asks 
us to vote for it, which we have never seen, and then they are going to 
say, OK, bye-bye, we are going.
  They are going to send it to the Senate. They do not know what the 
Senate is going to do with it. And if the Senate does not pass it that 
way, because it has to be done that way, you cannot change one t in it, 
one i in it, one period in it. If they do not take it, then the 
Government closes down. They are not going to stay here to wait and see 
if they can work something out with the Senate. No, they want to leave 
here. Get out of here.
  I say stay here, stay here until we make sure that the Senate does 
it. And if the Senate does not do it, we work it out with the Senate. 
And then after it is all worked out and we know if it takes until 
tomorrow we know then that the Federal Government is going to continue 
to operate, then we do it.
  But the way you are proposing to do it, you are saying to the Senate, 
take it or leave it. I do not think the Senate is going to do that.

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