[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H925-H926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DO-NOTHING CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 12, 1995, 
the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is recognized during morning 
business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. Just like last week, we 
are going to do nothing this week. This is really a do-nothing 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, let us look at today's schedule. There are not very many 
Members here. We can look around and see that hardly anybody is here. 
Well, we have got two little bills that will be debated on and not even 
voted on today. If they are voted on, they will be voted on tomorrow. 
So, Mr. Speaker, we do not do much today.
  We have one that says, ``Municipal Solid Waste Flow Control.'' That 
will take about 20 minutes to a half-hour. Then we have got one that 
says, ``Land Disposal Program Flexibility.'' That will take about 
another half-hour. So we are going to be here for an hour today, hour-
and-a-half at the very most, and then we are going to quit.
  Mr. Speaker, then we are going to come back tomorrow, and tomorrow 
the schedule says we are going to take up the welfare farm bill. That 
is what it is; a big welfare program for the big farmers. They call it 
the Agriculture Market Transition Act, but I do not know if we are 
going to take it up tomorrow for the simple reason that it is still in 
committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I am on the Committee on Agriculture. We are supposed to 
go into a markup at 2 o'clock on that bill. They have already scheduled 
it for tomorrow, so I guess they assume that it is going to be reported 
out of committee and the Committee on Rules will meet tonight and we 
will take it up tomorrow.
  If we do not do that tomorrow, then there will be nothing for 
tomorrow, except maybe they are saying that they may devise, under the 
leadership of their chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], a budget patterned after what the 
President proposed. They call it the President's budget.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we had one of those foolish things last December. 
They tried to do that crazy stuff, and it does not go anywhere. Even if 
it is voted on, it never becomes law. We spend hours debating something 
and voting on it, it is never going to become law. That is what we did 
all last year. We are doing it again.

  Then, Mr. Speaker, they are talking about maybe Thursday we are going 
to have the President of France here in a joint session. Many of us, I 
am sure are not going to be here for the simple reason that we disagree 
with France and their nuclear testing policies.
  We may take up a sense-of-the-Congress resolution, they tell me, and 
that does not become law. So what are we going to do? Nothing. What did 
we do last week? Nothing.
  What should we do? I will tell my colleagues what we should do, and 
think most of the responsible Members of this House know, Mr. Speaker, 
that this week, right now, in order to soothe the concerns of our 
financial community, the bondholders and everybody, we should be 
passing a debt limit bill to increase the debt limit.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not care if we do it for 60 days or 30 days or 6 
months or a year; whether it is for $5.5, $5.7 trillion, whatever 
maximum. My Republican colleagues have already done it. They did it in 
their budget resolution, their reconciliation bill last year. So, Mr. 
Speaker, I do not see why we do not just go ahead and pass one; send it 
to the Senate. They will pass it, and we can get past that hurdle.
  No, Mr. Speaker, we are not going to do that. We are not going to do 
something that needs to be done and has to be done so that this country 
does not go into bankruptcy, and so that we do not default and become a 
Third World power, so that we do not go into a recession. They tell me 
that after Thursday, we are going to recess all the way to February 26.
  Mr. Speaker, Treasury Secretary Rubin has said that March 1 we go 
into bankruptcy, we go into default if the debt limit is not increased. 
What are we waiting on, Mr. Speaker? For those Members, both Republican 
and Democrat, who feel like I do that we need to do something about the 
debt limit, we need to increase the debt limit, there is a discharge 
petition up here. Mr. Speaker, 154 Members have signed. We only need 64 
more. Surely there are 64 Republicans that are responsible that will be 
glad to bring it out, and we can bring it out and pass it and let it 
become law.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, about this little thing right here. If this bill 
ever gets to the floor, I want my colleagues to know that I am going to 
be fighting it tooth and toenail. It is the biggest welfare bill that 
has ever hit this House. The other side talks about AFDC; they talk 
about food stamps. That is nothing.
  Mr. Speaker, would you believe that under this bill, farmers in Texas 
and 

[[Page H926]]
Arkansas and California, and other places, can get up to $120,000 a 
year, will get up to $120,000 a year, and not have to farm? They do not 
have to farm at all. They do not get it for 1 year; they get it for 7 
years. For 7 years. That is $840,000 a farmer.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to mention something. In the State of Kansas, in 
western Kansas where the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture comes 
from, there will be payments to 85 percent of those big wheat farmers 
to the tune of the average of $30,000 a year for the next 7 years.

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