[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 125 (Thursday, September 12, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10329-H10330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  COMMONSENSE GOVERNMENT REFORM NEEDED

  (Mr. GINGRICH asked and was given permission to address theHouse for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I brought in an official congressional ice 
bucket, because I thought it was the perfect symbol of what we are 
trying to do and how it sometimes gets misrepresented.
  When we became a majority for the first time in 40 years, we were 
trying, frankly, to pinch a few pennies to save some money and to be 
able to provide tax relief. As we looked around at things that we might 
not need to be doing, we discovered that ice buckets were being 
delivered every morning to

[[Page H10330]]

every office. We were under the impression that refrigerators have now 
been invented and were available, and in fact it turned out every 
office had refrigerators and virtually every staff member knew how to 
get ice out of the refrigerator. By eliminating the delivery of ice, we 
save $400,000 a year.
  In terms of being a commonsense Congress, I just think this ice 
bucket tells the story about as well as anything we have done. For 
years and years, long after refrigerators became common, ice was being 
delivered. The Washington bureaucracy just kept doing whatever it was 
doing, even if it made no sense.

  Maybe to some folks $400,000 a year is not a lot of money, but that 
is enough money to give over 300 families the tax relief Bob Dole is 
offering without increasing the deficit, and I would suggest that it is 
exactly the kind of commonsense reform, saving $400,000 by stopping the 
ice bucket, that allows us to talk about returning money to the 
American people without doing anything to harm the Government that is 
necessary, but doing everything to cut out the waste that is 
unnecessary.

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