New Year – New Direction in Congress

New Year - New Direction in Congress

A former Congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, said of her own 12 terms in office, "Twenty-four years of housework, and the place is still a mess." Ten years after Pat retired from Congress, I return there to begin my 5th term and Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the House. The new Speaker inherits an even bigger mess. But Nancy knows that her experience managing a home with five small children prepared her well for wrangling the House of Representatives into shape and I, for one, don't doubt her.

I return to a Congress that faces some of the greatest challenges this country has known since World War II. But I return with a renewed sense of hope and purpose. Speaker-designate Pelosi has laid out a strong and positive plan for what the Congress must do, not in the first one hundred days, but in the first one hundred hours of this term. Foremost among these is restoring open government and honest leadership.

Under Republican control, House leaders encouraged and nurtured cozy relationships between Members of Congress and lobbyists. While special interests reaped rewards, Americans bore the brunt of this corruption with high prices at the gas pump, skyrocketing drug costs, and the waste, fraud, and no-bid contracts in the Gulf Coast, Iraq, and elsewhere.

In the new Congress, we will consider a series of proposals to clean House and sever unethical ties between lobbyists and lawmakers; and, with a Democratic majority, they will pass.

The new Congress will also reclaim its Constitutional authority to check and balance the Executive and Judicial Branches of government. The Republican-led Congress gave President Bush carte blanche to wage a war in Iraq that is now widely seen as a mistake. Congress has a right and a duty to protect Americans from the excesses of an unchecked Executive; and the new Congress will meet that responsibility.

In the new Congress, we will chart a course of fiscal responsibility by re-instituting pay-as-you-go budgeting with no new deficit spending. This Bush administration turned a projected 10-year $5.6 billion surplus into a nearly $3 trillion deficit. Enough is enough.

In the new Congress, we will raise the minimum wage for the first time in nine years and cut interest rates on student loans. Both measures will give a boost to working families and young people entering the job market.

In the new Congress, we will immediately address some health care needs affecting millions of lives. We will cut the cost of health care by requiring Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Existing law, written to benefit big drug companies, prohibits Medicare from negotiating lower prices. This is a ridiculous and harmful public policy that must be changed; as must the current federal law restricting research on embryonic stem cells. The new Congress will again pass legislation expanding federal funding for this research that has the potential to stimulate new treatments and cures for numerous diseases as well as brain and spinal cord injuries -- legislation that President Bush has vetoed once already. Let him know he must sign this measure when it reaches his desk.

As we seek peace and stability in the Middle East, we must also seek energy independence here at home. This is critical to our national security. In the new Congress, we will increase our investment in renewable energy. We'll start by repealing billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry which is enjoying record profits and we will invest in cleaner, more efficient, renewable sources of fuel.

In the new Democratic Congress, we must use all our power to help the President chart a new course in Iraq. Families throughout Wisconsin and the nation are spending these holidays missing loved ones in uniform who are in harm's way. Thousands of American families are mourning the loss of a son or daughter, father or mother, brother or sister, husband or wife. My thoughts, and those of my colleagues in the Congress, are with all of them. If there was any message sent to Members of Congress and the President this past election, it is that the people we serve want a new direction in the new year.

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