Rep. Roscoe Bartlett Reflects on 111th Congress After Final Adjournment of Lame Duck Session

Statement

Congressman Roscoe G. Bartlett, R-6-MD reflected upon the 111th Congress after the House ended its Lame Duck session and adjourned sine die. Congressman Bartlett released the following statement.

"It's a very sad reflection upon the institution of the Congress and the current leadership of the Congress that none of the must-do items by any Congress were completed this year before the elections in 2010.

"For the first time since the current budget process was established in 1974, the House of Representatives failed to vote on a federal budget. The House also failed to approve a single of the 12 Appropriations bills to fund the discretionary operations of the federal government next year.

"The plan by the leadership to defer all of these must-do items until after the elections in a Lame Duck session is a testament to two realities. The leadership knew that the public opposed their liberal agenda. Most Democrats also genuinely believe that the majority of the American people are wrong and that they're right -- that a bigger federal government and higher taxes are the right thing to do. The leadership used the Lame Duck session to ram through as much as they could of controversial items in defiance of the will of the voters who fired them in November.

"The public is probably pleased that the productivity of this Congress increased ten times in the Lame Duck session compared to the rest of 2010. Unfortunately, the public opposed most of what the outgoing leadership did."

"I look forward to a Happy New Year in 2011 with the incoming Republican majority of the House of Representatives. We have pledged to be accountable to the voters. We are eager to offer solutions to address our ballooning debt to avert a financial crisis, reform our cumbersome tax code and reduce our bloated federal government and make it more effective."

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