[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3173-H3174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ONE GREAT LEGISLATIVE DAY

  (Mr. GINGRICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, let me say I just wanted to remind our 
Members, because we were so busy yesterday and it may not have been 
obvious, how much we got done in 1 day.
  In 1 day this House sent to the President a landmark freedom-to-farm 
bill which revises 60 years and provides reform for a 60-year-old 
program.
  We sent to the President a historic line-item veto bill which 
Presidents, beginning with Grant in the 1860's, requested from the 
Congress, and for the first time we passed it to send to the President.
  We sent to the President an earnings limit increase for senior 
citizens so they could work without being punished by the Social 
Security Administration taking money away from them, something which 
every senior citizens' group has supported and which encourages people 
to stay active and be healthy.
  We sent to the President real regulatory relief to help small 
businesses create jobs, helping the economy and reducing the amount of 
unnecessary redtape in this society.
  We passed health care reforms to end job lock and make health care 
more affordable, the Health Coverage Affordability Act of 1996, which 
dramatically increases the ability to change jobs without worrying 
about preconditions,

[[Page H3174]]

guaranteeing portability, which prevents health care fraud and abuse 
and establishes a senior citizen incentive to turn in fraud, which 
creates administrative simplification to save on redtape, which passes 
medical liability reform to reduce the number of lawsuits and increase 
the amount of care that is focused on health care rather than legal 
behavior, which has tax-related concerns that guarantee deductibility 
for long-term care and which establishes the deductibility of medical 
savings accounts.
  All of those were done in 1 legislative day.
  I think this Congress can be proud of its commitment to reform and 
the serious, practical, commonsense work we are engaged in to give the 
American people a better government at lower cost with better services.

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