[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H11750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        BUDGET BATTLE CONTINUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it is 4:12 p.m., the House has finished its 
regular business for the day, the government does not yet have a budget 
for the fiscal year which began 1 month ago today, and no meetings are 
scheduled.
  When the Republican leader who stood up on that side to represent the 
schedule to us on the minority earlier was asked, okay, where are we 
negotiating?, he said, well, he would try and get back to us with a 
room number on that. That was after they attempted to castigate this 
side, castigate the President and others for not negotiating in good 
faith. They have not, and they, of course, control all the space around 
here, scheduled a room.
  Why have they not scheduled a room? Because they have no intention of 
continuing negotiations. We are limping along day to day because the 
majority failed to get its work done. They did not have a budget for 
the fiscal year which began on October 1. We have gone through a series 
of continuing resolutions. I believe today was the 11th.
  Now, there was one little ray of hope on Monday. They negotiated all 
weekend. Everybody designated their hitters to go into the room. And 
they came to an agreement. They toasted that agreement. They left the 
room. The White House negotiators went back to the White House and the 
President said good for you. He stood behind what they did. The Senate 
negotiators went back to the Senate and their leaders, both sides of 
the aisle, stood behind them and said good for you. The Democratic 
negotiators came back to our side of the aisle and we said, Didn't 
think you could get it done. Good for you. But then in the strangest 
turn of events, the Republicans, the Republican leadership, pulled the 
rug out from the people that they sent in as their designated hitters 
to negotiate.
  Now they are saying, Well, the President wasn't in the room. Of 
course the President was not in the room. The President does not sit 
down for endless hours working on details on legislative bills. That is 
our job. And we got the job done. But then you, because of the phone 
calls from the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber 
of Commerce and other very, very powerful special interest groups who 
are funding huge television campaigns right now on behalf of the 
majority and on behalf of the majority's candidate for President and 
against members of the minority said, No. No, you can't have that 
agreement. They stood up, saluted and said, okay.
  It would have provided for additional workplace health and safety for 
American workers. Hundreds of thousands of workers who are injured 
every year would have benefited from that legislation and the financial 
and political masters of the majority on that side told them they could 
not do that. They were the only people to renege on the deal. 
Republicans in the Senate stood behind it, the President stood behind 
it, the Democrats in the House and in the Senate stood behind it; but 
no, the Republican leadership in the House killed the deal. And now 
they are pretending they want to work, but they have no discussions 
set. They do not even have a room scheduled.
  This is really kind of a sad commentary at this ending of a Congress. 
I really think that we could do with a little bit of honesty around 
here. If they do not want to negotiate, if they just want to stay in 
town to make some kind of a bizarre point, then they should just be 
honest about it. Do not pretend. Do not go off on this stuff about, Oh, 
the President's not in the room. You know that no President sits down 
to discuss legislative details. But when they sent a hitter there, 
someone to go as a designated person to negotiate, this President stood 
behind his person. You did not stand behind your negotiators. Guess 
what? The Speaker was not in the room. The gentleman who killed the 
bill, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority whip, was not 
in the room. The majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), 
was not in the room.
  We could have that argument all day long. Oh, your leader wasn't in 
the room. Oh, your President wasn't in the room. That is not what is 
going on here. The real shots are being called not over there with the 
leadership but with their funders, the people who are funding their 
campaigns. They call the real shots and they jerked the rug out so we 
do not have a deal. And it is not going to happen before the election 
because they cannot risk offending those people before the election.
  So let us just admit that. Let us have the majority admit to that 
instead of continuing this farce and these false accusations.

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