[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 148 (Friday, October 16, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H11026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         LITANY OF NONACCOMPLISHMENTS OF A DO-NOTHING CONGRESS

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let us not kid ourselves. The Republican 
leadership was not prepared to do anything that was really important or 
address any of the real issues that the American people cared about in 
this Congress.
  Fortunately, we as Democrats were able to push them as part of this 
budget agreement to address a few things, most importantly to add 
100,000 teachers in the elementary school classes, and also to make 
sure that the Social Security trust fund was not drained, if you will, 
for tax giveaways.
  But there is a lot more to be done here and this do-nothing Congress, 
this Republican leadership leading this do-nothing Congress did not 
address managed care reform, did not address campaign finance reform, 
did nothing to deal with the severe problem of teenage smoking, did 
nothing really to deal with most of the education initiatives that the 
Democrats have put forward. Most importantly, they refused as part of 
this budget deal to deal with school modernization. We have classrooms, 
we have schools throughout the country that need repair, that need to 
be upgraded to deal with computers.
  There are a lot of other education initiatives that were not 
addressed as part of this Congress. I am happy today we just joined 
with the President, we are happy that they added the 100,000 teachers 
and that that will be part of this budget deal. We are happy that the 
Social Security trust fund is still intact, but there is a lot more 
that needs to be done. Let us not kid ourselves by saying anything that 
this was nothing but a do-nothing Congress.

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