[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H5991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN PREVENTION LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, everyone is pleased that the budget agreement 
has been reached between the White House and the Congress, and that 
does call for applause across the Nation, but there still looms the 
possibility of a shutdown in Government, I hasten to say, and that kind 
of shutdown can do more to unravel the budget agreement that we have 
reached than any other single event that I can conceive at this stage 
of the budget proceedings.
  Now, I have been trying for almost 10 years now to convince the 
Congress that we ought to have in place a permanent solution to the 
possibility of a Government shutdown; namely, that at the end of the 
fiscal year, September 30, if the appropriations process has not been 
completed, those bills that have not yet been finally formulated would 
simply turn over the next day and adopt last year's instant replay type 
of figures so that we would have last year's budget go into effect 
until a new budget can be prepared and adopted. This instant replay 
would prevent a Government shutdown.
  It was outrageous, in my judgment, to have heard on the floor, when 
this proposition passed during the disaster relief fiasco that we 
underwent, the claim that if we passed the Gekas antishutdown 
legislation it would mean the cutting of funds. I have just finished 
saying, Mr. Speaker, that if my bill would be adopted, at the end of 
the fiscal year, if we do not have a budget, last year's figures would 
obtain.
  So there would be no cutting of funds. It would be maintaining the 
same funds as last year, and then the negotiators proceed on their 
merry way to prepare a new budget. At any given time after September 30 
a new budget could go into place, and that vitiates the instant replay 
that would have gone into place.
  The other outrageous claim that has been made against our bill is 
that it creates a disincentive to negotiate. But the truth of the 
matter is that both sides need a new budget, so that at the end of 
September 30, those who want increased spending will have a chance to 
negotiate, those who want to cut spending will have a chance to 
negotiate, but in the meantime, last year's figures will obtain.
  What is wrong with my proposition, I fear, is that it makes good 
sense. Therefore, it has very little chance of passing this Chamber on 
its own. But I do believe that now that we have passed this budget, or 
that we have reached a budget agreement, and that there would no longer 
be the disincentive to reach a budget because we have reached a budget 
agreement, that perhaps we can begin to focus on the antishutdown 
legislation as a permanent solution.
  Not just for 30 days as a continuing resolution, not for 6 months or 
a year, but to put it in place for all time, so that every year when 
the budget looks like it will go down in flames around September 30, 
that we will have this fallback lifesaving mechanism to prevent a 
Government shutdown and all the bad consequences that flow.
  After all, Mr. Speaker, this is a truism as well; that risking a 
Government shutdown really does cut back on funds. Cuts funds. Why? If 
the Government shuts down, all the mechanisms that get the Social 
Security checks out, the visas, the national parks, all the services 
that our constituents rightfully demand, all of those come to a halt. 
Indeed, then there is a cut in services, a cut in funding, a cut in 
appropriations.
  That is the real risk that we have; that the Government will shut 
down. Not the risk that some appropriations will be less than last 
year's, but rather whether or not we shall have Government continue to 
present the benefits that are necessary to maintain the budget and to 
maintain what is expected of us by our constituents.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope to continue to raise this issue at every 
convenient forum between now and September 30, and I hope that the 
leadership and the President see fit to reconsider the matter at a time 
to be set aside in the month of September. After all, the President, 
even as he vetoed this legislation, said that the goal of preventing 
Government shutdown is an admirable one. I hope that he will sign such 
a shutdown prevention piece of legislation to meet that goal.

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