Tom Davis

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DAVIS. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Mr. Speaker, it is important for the House to know that Dr. Morgan and her daughter are, frankly, gagged right now from even communicating with Members of Congress or lawyers in the United States because a New England gag order has come as a result of legal efforts by her former husband to do that, and that has made this more difficult. So we are communicating through friends as we approach this, but our efforts to speak directly have now been thwarted, too, which I think adds to the urgency of moving this legislation through at this time.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Let me finally say that I will support this, the bill before us today. It is not everything I had hoped for, as a representative of many Federal employees who have been furloughed and not paid during this time period, but it is a step in the right direction. We have really let the hostages off the plane today. Now the budget battle can be engaged between the President and Congress. I hope that leaders from both sides will sit together, act like grownups, and work out these agreements and we will not have to go through this again. This has been a long and difficult period for Federal employees. I want to personally thank those who have stayed in there, working over Christmas vacation, working through the new year, many of them being unpaid while we here have not been able to do our job in agreeing with the President. I think the Federal employees during this period have been the unsung heroes of this and the only people who can hold their heads high while Congress and the President have dithered.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding time to me. I would like to ask a couple of questions. We have, in addition to the Federal employees who have been furloughed and unpaid since December 15, in my district thousands of Federal contractors, a majority of whom have been working with fiscal year 1995 money, and their employees have been unpaid by the Federal Government because their contracting officers have not been able to work, according to EPA, and the contracting officers, technical representatives, and those who oversee these contracts. Under this these people would be put back on the work, those key contracting officers. Does the gentleman see any reason why the fiscal year 1995 money then could not be spent to these contractors at that point?

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, would it not seem to the gentleman reasonable that the administration, we would hope the administration would do everything possible at that point to utilize these contracts in the interest of the Government?

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, let me first of all say I am grateful we have gone part of the way to opening up the Government. I want to go the full way. I believe we ought to have a clean resolution. Barring that, I think this is a very good step in that direction. Let me just say, all we are saying here, as I understand it, there would not have to be any unnecessary delays because there are a number of balanced budget provisions that have been put out there by Democratic Members of the House and Senate: the Blue Dog budget here in the House, the Senate Democrats. If the President adopted any of those, which have already been scored by CBO, we could open the Government by Monday. I would ask the gentleman from New York, am I right?

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DAVIS. My friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson], who I think is a very able man, has mentioned that this would be demeaning to the President to ask him to submit a balanced budget. I do not think it is demeaning at all. He campaigned on it. We have submitted our balanced budget. He has found tremendous fault with that, which is his prerogative, but we need to have a dialog. It is very difficult to engage in discourse, dialogue, and negotiation when the goalposts keep getting moved back every time we get close. That is our great frustration. If we could have the president to submit his budget, we submit ours, and then we could move, I think that would help and further the negotiation. I would just say to my friend, the gentleman from New York, there is nothing really to prevent the government from opening fully on Monday if this were to pass, if the President were to embrace already one of the plans that has been submitted by different Democratic groups in the Congress.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, this does not require the President, as I understand it, to support any tax cut. He could have full funding for Medicare. He could add money to Medicare over and above what the law allows, add more money to the environment, add more money to education. I guess the bottom line is it just requires the numbers to add up by the year 2002. Is that correct?

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I was moved today to hear the comments of a young man from Baltimore at a rally outside here, a Federal employee talking about the hardships that this furlough has placed on him and his young family, and I place the following in the Congressional Record: Like the rest of you who are here today, I am a furloughed Federal Government employee . . . and I am essential. I work for the Health Care Financing Administration in Baltimore, Maryland. At HCFA, I work to assure that all Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries receive quality health care. While my fellow furlough workers and I are not at work, millions of beneficiaries run the risk of not receiving quality health care. This is an extremely serious matter. I am here today to explain to President Clinton, Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and other House Republicans what it means to be on furlough while the Government continues to be shut down. I am not alone. My situation is not unique. This past summer I got engaged to be married. My fiance is a full time graduate student. We knew this year was going to be tough managing on one income. Not this tough. The rent is still due on the 1st of the month. Creditors want their payments. Tuition needs to be paid. Our lives will go on, but not without some serious pain. The furlough not only has affected my state of finances, but also my state of mind. First, our political leaders declare us ``not essential''--an ultimate slap in the face. Then they allow this Government Shutdown to continue through Christmas and New Years--Happy Holidays everyone. Lastly, we have been told that we will receive back pay. This, however, does not keep the creditors at bay. We deserve the respect we are entitled to. We serve because we want to serve. We work for the Federal Government because we want to help the public. Are the negotiators really helping the public? I think not. Here we are standing in front of the U.S. Capitol. A symbol of Democracy. An institution where leaders debate over differences in ideology. In the past, these debates have ended in compromise. Compromise is the name of the game. If an individual decides to come to Washington, DC to serve, he or she must understand the importance of compromise. I urge the negotiators to reach a compromise on the budget so we can put this behind us. As a result of the budget impasse, federal workers are being used as pawns. But the real loser is the American Public. Enough is enough. Again, we urge you, send us back to work. Also, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that it is time to get the hostages off the plane. It is time to get the Federal workers back to work. They have been unintended victims of this. We are on the verge of at least paying them for the time that some of them have missed, and some of them have been working and not been paid, and now it is time to get the rest of them back to work and performing the duties of Government. I favor a clean continuing resolution, but, if we cannot get that, I am for taking whatever steps we can toward moving this Government to open again. My message to both the President and the congressional leaders is let us negotiate this out, and to the President it is let us see what his balanced budget is. We know he does not like what his balanced budget is. We know he does not like what has come from this side. I would like to see what he proposes in comparison. I hope that they will work this out in the very near future. We are going to give them until January 26 to work this out.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, this is disgraceful. We have Members over here saying it is Gingrich's fault, it is the President's fault. it is all of our faults, folks. We have not been able to get our act together. We could pass a continuing resolution. I favor doing that, and I voted yesterday with my colleagues to do it. But the President could have signed the appropriation bills, or he could have put a balanced budget on the table and that would end this entirely too. So we all share blame. One of the most outrageous proposals I have seen is to recess this Congress until January 23. If we recess the time to move the discharge petition, that will take a longer period of time. I think that is wrong. We ought to bring this to a vote and let the House vote on it. Congress would go home for nearly 3 weeks and leave the Government unfunded. We would be asking Federal workers to work at their jobs for a period of 1 month and not pay them, if you can imagine that, while we being fully paid would go back to our districts. I agree with the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] and the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella] who just talked. While we vacation back home, we would be asking Federal workers to work without pay. It is wrong, it would be a disgrace, it would send a signal to the American people, let them eat cake. I will oppose it, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, let me just share a little bit different perspective. First of all, I think to hear Members from this side of the aisle get up and blame the President for the shutdown and Members on the other side get up and blame the Republican Congress, we get an understanding of why things are not working around here. It seems like nobody says they want a train wreck, but the President would love to have it down here at the Capitol steps. Some of our Members would like to have it down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In the meanwhile, nothing gets done. Let us talk frankly about what it would take to open up this Government. Four things could happen. First of all, the President could sign the appropriations bills that we sent him. He has signed a number of those bills. He has vetoed three and sent them back. The Interior appropriations bill we tried to override today, our second option if he does not sign those bills that would put people to work and put the Government to work, which is his prerogative under the Constitution, is that we can see if we have enough votes to muster a veto override. That takes two-thirds votes. We voted on the Interior appropriations today. I think it was a reasonable bill. I did not like all parts of it. We had rejected that bill twice on environmental grounds, tried to make it a little better each time. The President vetoed it knowing, in the meantime, that this bill would have put 133,000 people to work; it would have opened up the national parks, the Smithsonian; it would have put the U.S. Geological Survey back to work. I have 1,000 workers in Reston that are furloughed at this time, so that they could do their work.

Mr. DAVIS. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. DAVIS. Reclaiming my time, let me just say to my friend, we have had 57 continuing resolutions since 1980 between the House and Senate. Most of those were with a Democratic Congress and a Republican President. How many of those CR's were clean CR's? Many of them were not. The Boland amendment which forbade aid to the Contras was put on a continuing resolution. We even put roads and the New Jersey Turnpike into the Federal Highway System on a continuing resolution. There is a loss of surplusage and riders in these. I am not defending, and I would like to see a clean CR. I was one of two Members on this side of the aisle who voted with you yesterday to bring up a clean CR. I am going to get to that in a minute. But no one can sit here and say, ``Gee, let's do a clean CR'' when you all were on the other side and we had a Republican President you very often did not send a clean CR at the same time.

Mr. DAVIS. Just for a second, because I want to make a few points.

Mr. DAVIS. Reclaiming my time, I do not disagree with the gentleman. I think what has happened here is a national disgrace. But to put it on one side or one party is, I think, a big mistake. I think that is part of our problem, is we end up too much time pointing fingers at each other and too little time working together and working these issues out. Let me just get back to the Interior appropriations bill again. This bill I think had a number of good items. I think the President, part of him wanted to sign this. I know the Vice President urged him not to. We could still fix this bill. I think we have time to come back and fix this bill in a reasonable period of time and get these people back to work. Some of the other appropriation bills that have been brought forward, I think, need a little more fixing and we need some time. The President could have signed these bills, would have put people to work in fairness, Congress could have overridden the vetoes, the votes are not here to do that, so next comes to the continuing resolution.

Mr. DAVIS. I would be happy to yield, but I want to make a few points, I only have 5 minutes, I say to my friend from California.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me say to my friend that may be able to happen in time. We will have a discharge petition. But 30 days have to run. The problem with this recess is that you do not get the legislative days run during that time. Eventually this will happen, I think, if we could get it to the floor, it or something close to it would pass.

Mr. DAVIS. Well, that would do it, but it does not solve some of the other problems. A continuing resolution is not a resolution. There are still a lot of issues at play in the continuing resolution that frankly ought to be worked out.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me just make a couple of final points. It also does not get us to a balanced budget which is something else that I think needs to be done that we feel very strongly. The fourth thing that could happen is the President could put a balanced budget on the table and we would get a continuing resolution like that. I think that onus is on the President. Both sides are at play here. I think we could all do a better job.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend from Massachusetts, this Government closed down nine times under the Reagan and Bush administrations when Congress did not come up with the appropriate resolutions and there was a veto and an impasse. The difference was in those days that it never lasted longer than 3 days or a weekend because the President would be up here after a veto trying to work out the differences. We have not seen that in this case. I think our side is equally responsible. We ought to bring a continuing resolution and move it through, but I do not think you are blameless in this. Frankly, the President can end this right here by signing this bill. The issues that you claim are policy issues are not enough money for weatherization, not enough money for the National Endowment for the Humanities, not enough for native Americans, but what is in this bill is a lot more than what you have got on the table right now, which is a Government shutdown altogether. This bill will put 133,000 Federal workers back to work. It will open up our national parks. It will open up the U.S. Geological Survey, which is doing a lot of research on earthquakes, on health and safety, water quality assessment, that is not being done right now. We have to balance the good this bill does against a few of what I think are ideologically driven objections on the other side.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, frankly we have had several opportunities to open up the Government. We had one just a few minutes ago in overriding the President's veto on State, Commerce and Justice that would have put hundreds of thousands back to work. Our side of the aisle supported it, yours did not. The President has had an opportunity to sign a number of appropriation bills, he has not. But I support the resolution. I will be one of the Republicans that will vote to open up the Government. I will come and sign a discharge petition or anything else. I think this has gone on too long. I think we all look ridiculous at this point, and it is important that we open up the Government, get people back to work and start paying the people who have been doing the work over the Christmas holidays and are not getting their full paychecks. They are now having to borrow and go to credit unions to do it. I would also add, I understand there may be a motion here tomorrow to recess this House until January 23 subject to the call of the Chair. That is something I am going to oppose. I think it is wrong for us to go home, take another vacation, with pay, and leave once again hundreds of thousands of Federal employees with their situations unresolved and that would mean another 2 or 3 weeks without pay. I will do everything I can to oppose that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I do not share the same pessimism my friend, the gentleman from Missouri, has at this point. I understand there was an objection that was interposed last evening by the Democratic side in the Senate. The poison pill the gentleman speaks about simply would allow the Senate to filibuster to death any kind of balanced budget resolution that the President and congressional leaders agree to. That seems almost indefensible to me, but at this point I think that is the best we are going to get. I wish the gentleman's unanimous-consent request had been adopted by this body. I supported that, and will continue to support that every opportunity I get. But I think this is our next-best shot. We can send it there and hopefully the Senate will work something out that will allow a balanced budget agreement to be debated in a reasonable amount of time and not be filibustered to death, which is why I understand the objection was interposed last evening.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the frustration of Members on both sides in trying to deal with this in a fair-handed way. Once again I supported the minority leader's request to bring this up clean. That was the surest and safest way to get Federal employees and contractors back to work. This can work, too. The only objection that could be interjected here are by Senators who feel a balanced budget agreement agreed to by the President and congressional leaders and brought back here would not be subject to the same expedited consideration that we usually undergo in budget reconciliation, that would allow a handful of Members to filibuster to death a balanced budget. No one here, I think, favors that. I cannot believe when it goes back to the Senate they will not be able to work that out. This is not necessarily the preferred mode. This moves us closer to the balanced budget and moves us closer to getting Federal employees back to work. In the absence of the minority leader's request today being objected to, this is the next best option. I hope it will be adopted.