[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     CONGRESS PLAYING POLITICAL CHICKEN WITH NATION'S CREDIT RATING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor to speak about 
something else, but I ask the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] to 
stay, because I was very fascinated by what he was saying, and he only 
had the 5 minutes. The gentleman is saying that his committee is going 
to mark up this megabill that is going to cost billions of dollars, and 
really it is going to be basically for the fat-cat farmers?
  Mr. VOLKMER. If the gentlewoman will yield, yes, basically the 
wealthy, the farmer with a lot of acreage producing a lot of crops will 
benefit from it.
  To give another example, down in cotton country, in west Texas and 
New Mexico and other places where upland cotton is grown, if they gave 
a good year, and it looks like next year is going to be a good year, if 
they follow the programs, they could make, say, half a million dollars 
in selling their cotton. At the same time, a father and two sons, or a 
father with his two brothers, as long as they have three entities, they 
can get $40,000 each. They will get that whether they farm or not.
  If they make half a million dollars, they are still going to get 
$120,000 from the Government. If they do not farm at all, they decide, 
``Well, we are going to quit farming, we are going to let the land stay 
idle. Let us go down south for a while,'' they get $120,000. That is 
right. They do not have to farm at all.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is absolutely 
astounding. They get paid whether they decide to work or not?
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is correct.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, this is a welfare program that makes 
welfare look tough.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would continue to yield, 
it makes AFDC and food stamps and everything so little and so pikey. 
And yet they on that side made a big to-do on how we have to save all 
of this money, getting back to kids eating, to school lunches, and then 
giving big farmers, many of which have their own airplanes and their 
own big cars and Mercedes and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a 
year, they are going to give them money.
  Like I said before, in the chairman's own district, it has been 
estimated that in the chairman's own district in western Kansas, he has 
85 percent of his wheat farmers in the program. So they will, each one 
of them will get on the average, estimated on the average, $30,000 a 
year, even if they do not farm. If they do, and next year wheat prices 
are looking real good, and they make a $100,000, they still are going 
to make that $30,000.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. They do not have to give it back?
  Mr. VOLKMER. No, no, it is guaranteed.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
gentleman for staying. I know the gentleman is very busy.
  Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman is saying is classic about what is 
going on around here. This place is basically shut down. They throw out 
a bill, and we find out all of these special interests here in it. Here 
we are, playing political chicken with the credit rating of this 
Nation. This is outrageous.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield, it is the 
same thing that happened in the 100 days. Remember, if we were on the 
committee, we got the bill that morning. Guess what, I got the final 
version of their bill this morning, and we are going to mark it up at 2 
o'clock.

  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri. He 
is obviously a speed reader, if he got through it that fast, and the 
rest of us will never see ti.
  Mr. Speaker, it will be like the committee that I am on that came to 
the floor last week. The Committee on National Security got notice that 
there were two copies of the bill, and we could go in the morning and 
could go to the room where the two copies of the bill were located. We 
could spend our time reading the bill, of course, this thick. Get a 
clue.
  So I must say, this is really very troubling as to what is going on 
here and how stuff is ramrodded through, and we are getting paid, but 
we are doing nothing. We are becoming like the farmers, I guess. We get 
paid whether we legislate or not or whether we do anything realistic or 
not. Here we are, this is great. I guess we are changing our programs 
so that everybody else gets to be like Members of Congress.
  This is a light month; February, we are hardly here. But the tragedy 
is, this is a very serious month. This is the month when the birthdays 
of Washington and Lincoln come up. I wonder what they must be thinking 
that we are celebrating their birthday in February by pushing this 
country to the brink of shoving its credit rating right off the side.
  Mr. Speaker, I think of every American family sitting around their 
kitchen table, and one of the things they are terribly worried about is 
obviously their credit rating. In America, if one's credit rating goes 
sour, they are going to have a very tough life. If our country's credit 
rating goes sour, we are going to look like fools on this planet.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is really time that we all come and have some 
debates about those issues. We owe that to the people sitting around 
the kitchen table dealing with those issues in their own family 
budgets. For crying out loud, we are paid to deal with this Nation's 
budget. We are now 5 months into the fiscal year, and we have not done 
it. It is about time we get on with it.

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