Patricia Schroeder: “our new Speaker Gingrich certainly is not short of compassion. My colleagues, when I got up this morning and read…”

“our new Speaker Gingrich certainly is not short of compassion. My colleagues, when I got up this morning and read today's Congress Daily, I was absolutely amazed because, as of today, the House office buildings become the House boarding and office buildings. Yes, Members of Congress can have sleepovers in their office. Now I do not know if the House restaurant is going to be extending room service, or whether the IRS is going to tax us for this, or maybe we have to sleep in our cars, because we have been taxed on that. All these questions have not been answered, and we do not know if we can bring our families, and whether there will be hall monitors for all of that. But the Speaker says he feels so very sorry that Members cannot live in Washington on $133,000 a year, so he extended this privilege for the first time in over 200 years of the House's existence. So here we go. I guess we can have a slumber party every night. It certainly is a new House.”