[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 29183]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE 106TH CONGRESS

  (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am really stunned to listen to my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the fact that the 
106 Congress has not accomplished much of anything. I guess that is 
sort of their message today. So it is incumbent upon us to point out, 
once again, the great accomplishments that we have made in this 
Congress.
  At the beginning, Speaker Hastert stood right here on the opening day 
and talked about the need to improve public education. We have done 
that by passing the Education Flexibility Act so that local school 
districts can make decisions as to how to best educate their children. 
We passed the Teacher Empowerment Act, which also moves further in that 
direction.
  Tax relief for working families. We did it; we did it. People are 
taxed more than they ever have been since the Second World War, and the 
President unfortunately vetoed that measure and the Democrats on the 
other side of the aisle voted against it. We said that we wanted to 
save Social Security and Medicare, and we all know that we have locked 
up the Social Security Trust Fund for the future, going well beyond the 
62 percent that the President advocated when he stood here in his State 
of the Union message.
  And rebuilding our Nation's defense capability. We passed the 
National Missile Defense bill, which is very, very important to our 
national security, and the Defense appropriations bill. We have 
accomplished a lot in this 106th Congress, and do not forget it.

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