[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE GRAY MULE CONGRESS

  (Mr. BERRY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, this has been called the do-nothing Congress. 
In the lower Mississippi River Valley, where I come from, they have got 
a term called gray mule. I call it the gray mule Congress.
  What that term means is, in the frontier days, they had a lot of 
poker games. And if a fellow was not doing well in the poker game, he 
would jump up about the time he thought the game was going to end, 
knock the lantern over, turn the lights out, try to steal all the money 
he could, and take off and run.
  That is what the Republican Congress is trying to do to the American 
people. We come up here at the last minute, no budget, no 
appropriations, let us cram all this unscrupulous stuff into one bill 
and try to trick the American people into thinking we are doing their 
job and taking care of their business when we have not saved Social 
Security. We have not protected them in the health care area, and the 
list goes on and on of things we have not done.
  Let us recognize this gray mule Congress for what it is.




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