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.
“PUTTING OUR HOUSE IN ORDER” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H13348 on Nov. 20, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PUTTING OUR HOUSE IN ORDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Funderburk] is recognized during morning business for 3 minutes.
Mr. FUNDERBURK. Mr. Speaker, what if an unpopular President shut the Federal Government down and no body outside the Capitol beltway, except CBS, NBC, and the New York Times cared one whit? Judging by what the people of eastern North Carolina told me, that's exactly what happened last week. So let me cut through the fog that engulfed the White House and its bagmen in the media and tell you what this fight is really about.
The shut down of the Federal Government was not about petty partisan politics. This fight was and is about our children and our future. It is about two competing visions of America. The first vision is Bill Clinton's America where an army of Federal bureaucrats tells us how to raise our families, spend our money, and run our businesses. The second is our America; and America built on the promise of individual liberty and material progress.
The new majority was sent to Congress by Americans frightened of Government and exhausted by its ravenous demands. We were sent here to bring runaway Federal spending to a standstill. We hammered out a budget plan to balance the books, chop the arms off the Federal octopus, and let the people keep their money.
Bill Clinton's opposition to the Republican budget tells America three things:
Bill Clinton did not want a balanced budget.
Bill Clinton was never serious about carrying through on his campaign pledge to cut middle-class tax rates.
Bill Clinton is an old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal who genuinely opposes any reduction in Government spending.
We have had 800,000 Federal workers on furlough. Can the liberals continue to argue that these Federal workers and the thousands of idle programs they administer are critical to the health and safety of our country? Bill Clinton's own administration determined 67 percent of the employees at the Department of Commerce, 89 percent at Education, and 99 percent at HUD are nonessential. But Bill Clinton has done everything in his power to keep us from closing these and countless other Federal departments. So much for Bill Clinton, the new Democrat.
Americans don't miss these programs on Federal holidays and they certainly don't miss them today. For all of Bill Clinton's talk about the hazards of shutting down Washington, DC, most of these programs didn't exist prior to 1965 and America prospered for 190 years without them. By a margin of 10 to 1, my constituents in the second district of North Carolina said keep the nonessential parts of Government closed down and out of our lives.
Mr. Speaker, there was much more to this debate than furloughed Federal workers. Time is running out for our children. We are about to enter a new century on a collision course with catastrophe. If you add up all of the Federal entitlements, at their current growth rates and add the inevitable increase in the national debt, what you have in 20 years is a financial disaster of unimaginable magnitude. Entitlements plus our Federal debt will consume every last penny of Federal tax revenues. As it stands now, in 20 years our children and grandchildren will have half of their paychecks taken by Uncle Sam just to pay for entitlements alone. There will be nothing left for defense, law enforcement, foreign affairs, or agriculture, absolutely nothing.
Mr. Speaker, we are about to drive America off the cliff. For the sake of future generations we must put our house in order now. It's good to get a pledge from the President to agree to a balanced budget in 7 years. But that can't and won't take place without real reform of welfare, Medicare, education, the legal system, and workplace and environmental regulation.
We've won the balanced budget debate. Now we have to win the details and make sure that the left does not continue big Government business as usual. Our children's future depends on it.
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