[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 20, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2931-H2932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A NATION FOR ALL TIME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEKAS. Madam Speaker, if we were to take a poll of the American 
people on the question, should the Government of the United States ever 
be allowed to shut down, everyone knows that the overwhelming answer 
would be no, of course not. Perhaps a 98-percent return on such a poll 
would indicate that response.
  Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and George Washington and James 
Madison and their colleagues in Philadelphia in 1789 established a 
nation which they conceived to be one that would last for all time, 
never to be shut down, not even for 5 minutes. Yet, since I have been a 
Member of the Congress, and it has happened many times

[[Page H2932]]

before that, but since I have been here, the Government of the United 
States has shut down eight separate times and the budget of the United 
States has not been completed on 53 occasions.

                              {time}  1100

  This alarmed me when I first came to the Congress, so I began to 
introduce legislation some 8 years ago that would prevent a Government 
shutdown; that would say that if we have not, as a Congress, completed 
the business of the day and formulated a budget by September 30, the 
end of the fiscal year, if we have failed to do that, then the next day 
there should be an automatic replay, an instant replay, of last year's 
budget just to keep the Government going that would prevent a shutdown 
while allowing the Congress to proceed to negotiate to complete the 
budget that it has deemed necessary to accomplish.
  I have never been able to get it passed by the Congress because the 
President of the United States, whether it is Republican or Democrat, 
and the Congress, Republican- or Democrat-controlled, have failed to 
see the efficacy of the bill that I have introduced.
  It seemed to me a simple proposition. We have a budget. If we come to 
the end of the budget process and no new budget has arrived, there are 
only three alternatives.
  One is that the Government must shut down because of the lack of a 
budget. That is the constitutional result of having no budget.
  No. 2 is to pass temporary funding measures, called continuing 
resolutions, for a specified time, a month, 6 months, 8 months, 
whatever we want, until the Congress and the President can agree on a 
budget.
  Or third, we can adopt my proposition, which would simply say that if 
we do not have a budget, then the law should require an instant replay 
of last year's budget, thus ensuring that the Government of the United 
States would never shut down.
  After 8 long years I finally was able to muster enough support from 
well-wishing Members, colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to bring 
it to a vote as part of the supplemental appropriations legislation 
just last week. I was really shocked, then, with the result. We won, 
and I felt elated about that. But the rhetoric that accompanied the 
opposition to my bill was astounding. All but a handful of enlightened 
Democrats voted against the bill and spoke against it.
  What the Democrat rank and file, through their leadership, were 
saying is, you Republicans caused the shutdown last time. Therefore, we 
are not supporting your proposition to prevent shutdowns. Does that 
make sense? They say, you shut down the Government. Now the Gekas bill, 
which would prevent Government shutdowns, is unacceptable.
  Figure out the logic to that, because I cannot. All that would do 
would be to continue Government, prevent Government shutdown, and the 
budget process could take on its own evolution in its own good time 
between the President and the Congress of the United States.
  Many of them said that the reason they are voting no on this 
proposition to shut down the Government was because President Clinton, 
as he has, has promised to veto it. If the President of the United 
States does not want to see the Government shut down, why would he veto 
a proposition that would prevent Government shutdowns? Explain the 
logic of that to me, I ask the Speaker and the Members.
  What in the world does that mean? We want to prevent a Government 
shutdown. Well, let us prepare legislation that would prevent 
Government shutdowns. Well, then let us veto the legislation that would 
prevent Government shutdowns.
  The point is that it logically can be assumed that the people who 
vote against prevention of a shutdown favor the risk of a shutdown.

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