[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 150 (Tuesday, October 20, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H11551-H11552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              DISAPPOINTMENT OVER OMNIBUS SPENDING PACKAGE

  Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to express my 
disappointment in the bill that we are going to be voting on. The 
omnibus bill that will be brought up on the floor later today has over 
4,000 pages in it and over 2,500 pages of actual budgets that are going 
to be hopefully debated a little bit today.
  But, you know, it is now 12:30 p.m. Washington, DC, time. We will be 
taking up this debate sometime around 4 or 5 o'clock and probably make 
the vote around 6:30 or 7 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, and this 
Member of Congress has not seen the report yet. I have called a number 
of my other colleagues and they have not seen the report yet. The 
report is not out.
  We are going to vote on a $500 billion omnibus spending package, 
something that we have worked a year on, some have worked longer than 
that, and we have not even seen the work product yet.
  The Republican cloakroom has put out the spin and the Republican 
Conference has put out our spin on why this is a great win for the 
American people. Well, I do not think it is too hard to figure out that 
when the Democrats, the President, the Vice President, the party, is 
gloating about their great win, and then we come and say that we won 
also, something just does not figure.

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[[Page H11552]]

  When I came here in 1994, we came here as part of a group of people 
that believed in fiscal restraint; believed that the government had 
spent too much of our money. We believed that Congress had gone awry of 
what the American people had sent it to do.
  We promised a number of things. You will remember back in the 
Contract with America we promised to balance the budget, which we have 
done; we promised to overhaul the welfare system, which we have done; 
we went through that Contract with America, and the American people 
were proud of what was accomplished.
  I just returned back from Omaha today, and I have to tell you that 
the people in my district, the Second Congressional District of 
Nebraska, are very disappointed. They are very disappointed with the 
Congress, with the leadership. They are disappointed with the fact that 
we could not pass a budget bill that stayed within the caps. This bill 
is $20 billion over the budget caps.
  There are a number of measures in this bill that are now called 
``emergency funded,'' emergency spending priority items. I talked with 
my staff and said, why do we not just declare the whole budget 
emergency, because that is basically what it is. Things have been 
thrown in at the last moment, items that nobody in this Congress has 
seen yet. I think when it comes out into the full light, we are going 
to be very disappointed with a lot of projects that have been thrown in 
at the very last moment.
  The main paper in my district, the Omaha World-Herald, ran an 
editorial cartoon on Sunday which I thought was quite amusing. It is a 
picture of an elephant. It has the GOP leadership on that elephant. It 
is in a chiropractor's office, and the chiropractor is saying, ``I 
believe I have discovered the problem with your spine--you don't have 
one.''
  Folks, that is what has happened to the conservative movement back 
here, when we pass a bill that is $20 billion over the caps that has 
projected spending programs in there that the 1994 class would not have 
agreed to. And I do not know where we get off on the idea that we can 
come in here, pass a $500 billion-plus spending program, not have an 
opportunity to look at the bill, not have an opportunity to examine all 
the various programs that have been thrown in there, and say to the 
American people at a 4 o'clock rally today, ``This is a great product. 
You should be proud of this product, because we have passed it for you, 
the American people.'' That is not what this Congressman came to 
Washington to do.
  I know there is a lot of compromise that must go on between the 
leadership, between the Senate and the House, the majority and minority 
leaders. But at a time when we are dealing with a weakened President, 
at a time when the American people have said enough of overspending the 
taxpayers' money, you would think that our leadership, who professed to 
be the conservatives leading this revolution, could stand tough within 
that budget cap and stay true to the commitment that we came to and 
came here for in 1994. We have failed in this process.

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