[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              ON CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, other than the church and the family, I 
believe the United States Congress is the greatest institution in the 
world today and has been for a long time. The American people do not 
really know the details of what is going on up here over the last few 
days. They know the Congress is staying late to try to complete its 
work on reaching an agreement with the administration on the important 
budget for the next year and how we are going to spend their hard-
earned tax dollars. But this afternoon on the way over here to vote, 
Mr. Speaker, I stopped on the lawn of the Capitol, took a deep breath 
of some really clean, crisp fall air on a beautiful sunny fall 
afternoon, looked at the glorious dome above this magnificent building 
and reflected a moment on what this really is all about in my heart. It 
is really about patriots wrestling with other patriots over their 
different approaches to the many challenges that we face as a people. 
Domestic challenges like education and drug abuse, challenges around 
the world militarily, economically. But it is really about good people 
trying to come to an agreement over issues that we share in common and 
challenges that we share in common. I was reminded of Winston 
Churchill. To paraphrase him he said, ``This is the worst form of 
government imaginable, except for every other.'' What he meant is that 
sometimes it is difficult, sometimes it is painful, sometimes it is 
even messy. But it beats the heck out of everything else. It is still 
the way to do it, to settle our differences peacefully, without 
bloodshed, by freely electing our representatives and letting them be 
your voice through the debate, but at the end of the process come back 
together for the good of the greatest nation in the world and move 
forward. When President Reagan was in the White House, he had a 
Democratic Congress, they went through the same process, regardless of 
what you have heard. This is nothing new really. It has been going on a 
long time. President Clinton is now in the White House with a 
Republican Congress. The same thing. You have to fight it out and at 
the end of the day reach a compromise, come to the middle, move the 
process forward.

  So what is the bottom line with Congress about to adjourn for the end 
of the 105th? The bottom line is that the Congress is getting the job 
done. The bottom line is that the administration is getting the job 
done. In a few important days, the American people have a job to do and 
that is to exercise their privilege to participate and to vote and to 
freely elect their representatives to come here and hammer out these 
important decisions. This is really a great place, filled with good 
people. I wish each and every one of them all the best as they go back 
to spend some well-deserved time with the people that love them the 
most.

                          ____________________