Volume 142, No. 3 covering the 2nd Session of the 104th Congress (1995 - 1996) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE BUDGET DILEMMA” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S75-S77 on Jan. 5, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE BUDGET DILEMMA
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, it is my understanding, and I think the understanding of most of the Senators present, that the majority leader and the minority leader are at the White House at this moment once again meeting with the President as we try to unravel and resolve the budget issue that we are now in that has brought a portion of our Government to a standstill.
I, like many of my colleagues, am tremendously frustrated by the process of the last several weeks which has failed to produce a resolution that appeared to be a resolution committed to by the White House some weeks ago, that we would negotiate on the terms of a 7-year balanced budget reviewed by CBO figures. That simply has not materialized. And, of course, over the course of the last several weeks, with well over 200,000 Federal employees unemployed by failure to act, it is now time for the Congress to move to the issue of those Federal employees and resolve it.
As many of us know, the House earlier today passed a resolution that would allow those employees to come back to work for a period of time which results hopefully in the ability then of the Congress to move toward a balanced budget and resolve that issue and for us to be able to conclude the budget and get on with the business of operating this Government as I think the American people expect us to do.
I find it ironic that we are yet fumbling with the issue of a budget when we are nearing a statutory deadline that the President must agree to for the submission of a 1997 budget.
Here we are having failed to complete a 1996 budget that is balanced, that honors the commitment that we believe we hold with the American people to produce a balanced budget over the course of the next 7 years, and it will be on February 5, exactly 1 month from today, that the President by law is responsible for submitting the 1997 balanced budget, a product of the 1974 Budget Act.
Why are we in this dilemma at this moment? I think, except for the HHS, Education appropriations bill that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have refused to allow us to debate and to bring to a vote and to send to the President, the Congress has done its homework. It has done what it is responsible for doing under the Constitution in submitting to the President the appropriate appropriations bills.
The President's only action has been to veto, veto, veto the bills that would have kept the veterans' hospitals fully up and running, that would have kept the veterans' programs alive and operative; instead of being subject to the criticism we now hear, that the pharmaceutical shelves at some of our veterans' hospitals may be growing empty if we fail to act responsibly in a short period of time.
The President's actions, if he had not vetoed, would have kept the national parks and the forests and the museums opened and would have funded the Department of Justice and given law enforcement block grants to the States, would have allowed numerous agencies to continue and to complete their obligations to small business contractors and suppliers and provide passport services, and so on and so forth.
That is exactly what has happened. We have watched this President as he has vetoed these bills in an attempt to use rhetoric to place the burden on the shoulders of the U.S. Congress.
I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, to have printed in the Record a dialog that occurred on CNN last night between Judy Woodruff, the anchor, and Brooks Jackson, a special assignment correspondent, that I thought would be appropriate to be in the Congressional Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Executive Shutdown Statistics Miss the Mark
JUDY WOODRUFF, Anchor. If you are not one of the Federal workers staying home and worrying about bills, just how harmful are the effects of the partial government shutdown?
Our Brooks Jackson has some eye opening details.
BROOKS JACKSON, Special Assignment Correspondent. The shutdown--President Clinton calls it an unnatural disaster, but how bad is it? Let's check some facts.
The president ticked off some dire sounding consequences.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: This week, the Meals on Wheels Program for senior citizens will run out of money.
BROOK JACKSON: Federal money, yes, but in fact meals are still being delivered to seniors almost everywhere, paid for by state money or vendors extending credit.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency shut down toxic waste clean-ups at 32 sites across America.
BROOKS JACKSON: This time Clinton underestimated. In fact, more than 450 clean-ups, including this one in Virginia are being halted. But there are 1,283 clean-up sites and work is continuing at many, maybe more than half, including the roughly 100 sites that pose any immediate threat.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: Funds to pay for drugs, food and supplies at veterans' hospitals run out today.
BROOKS JACKSON: Funds ran out but not the food. Patients in veterans hospitals are still being fed, still getting medication. The Veterans Administration says patients are unaffected and vendors are still working figuring they'll get paid eventually.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: Ten states have run out of the funding they use to run our unemployment insurance program and 15 more will soon do so.
BROOKS JACKSON: But, in fact, not a single jobless person has yet missed an unemployment check. The Labor Department confirms. Kansas did shut its offices briefly, but then came up with state money to continue benefits as other states are doing. Clinton was just wrong on one point.
Pres. BILL CLINTON: Half the Head Start Programs in the country will run out of money within the month.
BROOKS JACKSON: In fact, Head Start officials say only 200 programs will lose funding at the end of the month out of a total of more than 1,400, so it's way less than half. The Justice Department got one of its facts wrong too.
JAMIE GORELICK, Deputy Attorney General: There are companies that provide credit cards for gasoline, are starting not to honor those credit cards.
BROOKS JACKSON: Turns out, Federal drug agents in South Florida tried to use a card that expired in 1995--nothing to do with the budget fight. The White House said the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be unable to recall some furloughed workers if an earthquake hit.
MIKE McCURRY, White House Press Secy.: --some of those employees because they can't pay their bills and don't have phone service.
BROOKS JACKSON: FEMA says phone service has been cut off for about half a dozen Washington employees, but admits their bill paying problems probably began long before the budget deadlock.
Of course, a longer deadlock will produce more serious consequences, but for now, the shutdown looks less like a national disaster than it does a political fiasco.
Brooks Jackson, CNN, Washington.
Mr. CRAIG. It is an interesting dialog, Mr. President, because it confirms some of the things that I have been talking about and that have concerned a lot of Members of this Congress as to the rhetoric of the White House and what to believe over the course of the last good many weeks, when the President has seemed to be a constantly changing and moving target on the issue of the budget, to agree some weeks ago to a 7-year, CBO-targeted budget, now not to want to present it or not to appear to be interested in presenting it.
The dialog that the anchor at CNN last night went through with Brooks Jackson was interesting in the sense that it said the President said this, but in fact this is the case, the President said that, but in fact something else is the case. I think it goes along to show that the shifting sands at the White House are extremely difficult for this Congress to work with at this moment to try to resolve these kinds of issues. I thought it would be important that that become a part of the record because simply they have not, in my opinion, kept their word.
So it is important tonight for the Congress to intervene, as we are now doing. I use the word ``intervene'' to pull, if you will, these Federal employees off the hostage roster and put them back to work doing what they are responsible for doing and bringing them back into the real world because they have been in limbo, and that has created great frustration. And it should not be allowed to happen.
I am one for some weeks that has been critical of using our Federal employees as hostages, if you will, or pawns in this budget battle that we are in, and that, Mr. President, in no way lessens my interest or the interest of this Congress in achieving a balanced budget.
I have been an advocate for well over a decade that the Congress face the reality of their spending habits and balance the budget. I have pushed for a balanced budget amendment, and of course we know the history of that whole debate here in the House and in the Senate for the last good number of years.
But without question, the battle that we are engaged in is extremely fundamental. It is not business as usual, as some news reporters and observers of the Congress would argue that it is. We have not phonied the numbers. We have not used smoke and mirrors, because if we had, we would not be in session right now, we would be in adjournment, and we would have told the American people that the work of the Government was done and that the 1996 budget was in place, and that all was well with the world.
That simply has not been the case. And it should not be the case. We are dealing with real figures right now, trying to downsize the overall growth of Government or the rate of growth. And you, Mr. President, have been directly involved, as have others of our colleagues, in trying to face the reality of these tough choices. Now we are just simply trying to get the White House to face the reality of tough choices. And they have simply passed on occasion after occasion to do that.
What we are trying to say at this moment, and what I am pleased the House has been willing to say, is let us at least take the Federal employees out of this battle and set them to the side, allow them to do the work they were charged with doing. I hope we can get that done.
Now, that was the first CR that was passed. I hope that we would be able to consider a second resolution or continuing resolution that was passed by the House today. That would allow all of the Government to open up for at least a period of time through January 26. The reason I say that is important is because while we are allowing, I hope, the Federal employees to go back to work, we may not necessarily be giving them the tools to do their work.
Of course, that would be a bit of a hollow argument that we are allowing Government to continue to operate and turning as it should without giving them the total tools to do so. The House recognized that, but they have put a requirement on the President. That requirement is that the President send forth a balanced budget, scored by CBO, and that budget be in balance in the 7-year timeframe that the Republican Congress has asked and required by their actions, and that the same funding levels of the CR that expired on December 15, funds required at 75 percent of fiscal year 1995 levels, would operate the significantly impacted programs.
I hope that we can look at that continuing resolution tonight and that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would agree with us on that. Then we could clearly say Government is fully back in operation, while we work with the White House to resolve this issue by the 26th of January.
Mr. President, those are key and important issues critical to all of us, but more importantly critical to our country. I think that the American people expect us to be able to operate the Government in a responsible way, but they have said very clearly that part of our responsibility is to bring this Government in balance, that a near $5 trillion debt and a $200 billion-plus deficit as far as the eye can see are no longer acceptable, that while we must be concerned about programs that fund the present, we must also reflect our concern by our actions on programs that impact the future of our country.
That, of course, is what we attempt to do tonight. So, Mr. President, I hope that within minutes our leadership will be in place and we can consider these important CR's to move the Government forward, to allow the Federal employees out of hostage, if you will, and back to work by Monday morning.
I think it is important for our country that we do so. But while we do it, let us not lose focus on the reason we are here; and that is that the White House has flatly refused to produce a balanced budget. That is now their obligation to do so. We have done so. We have done so in a responsible manner. It may not be a balanced budget that all of us agreed to, but it was one that clearly for the first time in decades demonstrates the priorities of Government under the kind of spending limitations that we believe are clearly necessary to get our debt and our deficit under control.
I hope the Senate will act responsibly tonight, as I believe the House has done this afternoon. With those comments, I yield the floor.
Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
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