[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 143 (Sunday, October 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A DO-NOTHING CONGRESS

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was sitting over in my office looking 
at my clips from the newspaper, and I come across one here I thought I 
would mention to my colleagues. This is the Washington Post, October 6, 
in their editorial section: A do-nothing Congress whose year has been 
spent deflecting good bills while barely pretending to legislate is now 
down to the task it cannot avoid. It has yet to pass 9 of its 13; well, 
really it is 7 of its 13; regular appropriation bills, and they go on 
and say on most of this stuff the President would be wrong to yield, he 
should veto the Republicans.
  Now the Republicans are out here today saying that we are trying to 
pick a fight, and so the paper says the Republicans say the President 
is trying to pick a fight on these issues, even to the point of 
shutting down the government to divert attention from their own 
failures. They seek thereby to disarm him. In fact, it is they who seek 
to divert attention from their own record which for most of the year 
consists of thwarting legislation that deserves to pass and now 
consists, in too many cases, of trying to sneak into law provisions 
that ought to fail. The President should swat them on it.

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