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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (513832)	12/21/2003 8:45:43 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Republicans Call Contract With America A Success WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Sept. 27) -- Democrats say House Republicans are hiding from their 1994 Contract With America, but GOP lawmakers took to the Capitol steps to celebrate the controversial blueprint for change, introduced two years ago today. "You asked for real change in 1994," declared House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Contract's principal architect, flanked by some 200 flag-waving Republican legislators. "We kept our word and we used common sense." (384K AIFF or WAV sound) House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said that more than half the agenda presented in the Contract was now law. He cited tax relief, welfare reform, anti-crime measures and a more streamlined government. "Yes, we kept our pledge, a new era has begun," Armey said. On the east side of the Capitol, a small band of Democrats held a competing event to offer a far different interpretation as the 104th Congress neared its end. "Republicans are falling over themselves to disavow the Contract and Newt Gingrich," declared Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who described the Contract as an "extreme agenda." Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said Republicans had "flunked the test of understanding what American families need today." The lawmakers brought an 83-year-old man to the podium who criticized GOP nominee Bob Dole for voting against Medicare in 1965. Schumer, holding up a "stop" sign at the end of the news conference, declared, "This is a symbol of what this Congress did. Its best accomplishments were stopping the Republican extreme majority from slashing Medicare, raping the environment and making educational opportunity out of reach for average families." (192K AIFF or WAV sound) Beyond the overblown rhetoric from both camps, the Contract's legacy is mixed. House Republicans kept their promise and considered all of the Contract's legislative items and passed most of them. The more moderate Senate, however, failed to enact much of the House-passed legislation. However, as Republicans are quick to point out, several of the legislative victories President Bill Clinton has taken credit for, including welfare reform, the line-item veto, forcing Congress to live under the laws it passes and an end to unfunded mandates on states, were Contract items. cnn.com