Sam Gibbons: “here we are, American people, at the 4th day of January, 1996, almost 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and what are we doing?…”

“here we are, American people, at the 4th day of January, 1996, almost 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and what are we doing? We are talking. Mr. Speaker, in November a year ago the American people put the Republicans in charge of the U.S. Congress. They have a majority in the House and the Senate. They set the agenda. We cannot bring anything up unless they bring it up. They are meeting at 7 o'clock tonight to try figure out how to get themselves out of the predicament, how to get themselves out of corner that they painted themselves into in this ridiculous exercise. One of the reasons I think the American people put the Republicans in charge is they thought that they could run this place like a business. Well, that turned out to be a joke. What business have we ever heard of that got mad, could not make a decision, sent its employees home and said, ``Stay home, but I will pay you anyway, except the essential ones, you keep working but I am not going to pay you for the work that you have done''? I have never heard of an American business that is run that way; certainly not in my congressional district. Mr. Speaker, then there is all this argument about the balanced budget. Well, I do not know anybody that is not for a balanced budget in this whole House of Representatives or in this whole Congress. The question is who is going to pay the cost of the balanced budget? Who is going to bear the burden of the balanced budget?”