[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 13 (Wednesday, January 31, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H984-H985]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TIME FOR RESPONSIBILITY IS NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, this debate, I think, for people at home 
is very frustrating, except I think the people are a lot smarter than 
those of us in the Chamber, and they see right through it. They know 
what is going on here. They see people saying, we are not going to pay 
our bills.
  Now, that has never happened. There have never been elected 
representatives that have come in and said, we are not going to pay our 
bills. That is not anything that anybody respects in America. Try that 
as a family. Furthermore, if you know you are just about to go into 
bankruptcy, you know you are just about to run up against that brick 
wall, you go on vacation for 3 weeks.
  Mr. BUNNING of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Well, let me finish, if you do not mind, because I do 
have a few things to say. I have asked others to yield and they do not. 
I remember the days when we used to yield, but I guess that seems to be 
over.
  I sit here and on one hand, I get depressed because people come to me 
and they say, why are you leaving? And I say to them, why are you 
staying? Why 

[[Page H985]]
are you staying? This place has just fallen to its new, all-time low. 
Never in the history of this Republic, during several wars, during 
depressions, during anything, have people stood up here and refused to 
pay the bills and said, OK, we will just take the full faith and credit 
of this great Nation, this Nation that has the best credit rating on 
the planet and we will just shove it off the cliff because we want our 
way. Never has it done that. I am embarrassed to be here.
  The good news is, the reason some of my colleagues are staying is 
because today in Oregon we know that the people are waking up and the 
people are saying, this is outrageous. We just saw a race where one 
person who spent $1 million more than the other lost. That says the 
people are saying, we have to pay our bills and we want this Government 
to pay theirs, and we do not want people playing fast and loose with 
the credit rating of this country.
  I have a question and my question is, if we know that March 1 is a 
very serious date, why are we leaving and not having any votes until 
February 27? Why are we having the French Prime Minister in here, the 
guy who is dropping nuclear tests all over the Pacific that most people 
and most countries are outraged about? Why is he coming here to give a 
speech? We have time to do everything in the world except deal with the 
one basic responsibility we have, and that is to pay our bills.
  Everything that is being discussed and everything that has already 
been committed to, this is not new spending; this is stuff that has 
been committed to. I think if we listen real closely and we are real 
quiet, we can hear the rest of the world laughing at us.
  I think that we ought to stay here, we ought to get started on this 
debt issue. We should not be running toward being a defaulting nation 
or a deadbeat nation.
  I just find it absolutely outrageous people saying, look, we are 
either going to be deadbeats or you are going to do it my way. It is 
like saying to Visa, I am not going to pay my bill unless you come 
paint my house, take care of my kids, walk my dog, and do anything I 
ask you to. I do not think that is how it works, and I think we all 
know that is not how it works.
  So I guess I am basically saying, remember, this is about paying our 
bills. We have had over 200 years of history where people in this 
Chamber have never, never used that as a leverage or a gun at the head 
of a President or anyone else. That should be done. Those things were 
decided upon; that happened, and we should pay those bills just like 
every other American.
  To play with the credit rating of this Nation we love is every bit as 
bad as desecrating the flag, as desecrating any other thing. I think it 
is really about patriotism. I cannot think of anything worse that we 
could do to our country at this moment than just trampling all over the 
credit rating and make this country be a deadbeat.
  Think about what other countries are going to think. They are going 
to think, hey, if we default, we default. We could have National 
Default Day.
  That is not what we were about, I thought. I thought we were about 
responsibility. I thought that is what Republicans were about, 
responsibility.
  I listen to all of this with 23-plus years of experience, sitting on 
this floor, and it saddens me greatly. Every single thing that the 
President has been asked to do, he has come forward with a proposal. It 
ends up, they do not like what he did, so they want it still to be 
their proposal.
  We do not have tantrums. Let us move on. Let us pay our bills and let 
us not be deadbeats.

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