[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 DO-NOTHING CONGRESS? I DO NOT THINK SO

  (Mr. RIGGS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Speaker, good morning. As my colleagues know, I guess 
this partisan debate really boils down to whether we want to see the 
glass as half empty or half full, and it is too reminiscent of I think 
the all too common American mindset of what have you done for me 
lately. The do-nothing charge though does not stand up to scrutiny 
because this is the Congress that balanced the budget and passed major 
tax relief for working Americans for the first time in a generation. We 
have fundamentally, as earlier speakers have pointed out changed, the 
debate in Washington, and we can take pride not in being the do-nothing 
Congress, but in being the surplus Congress.
  We have also reigned in the IRS through real reform of the IRS, 
shifting the burden of proof from taxpayers to the IRS in legal 
proceedings, and we put Medicare, the health insurance program for 
older Americans, on solvent solid footing.
  Do-nothing Congress? I do not think so. The glass is half full and 
only getting better as the Republican majority grows in Congress and in 
the country.

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