Tom Harkin: “I say to my friend, it seems to me what we are facing is that the majority party, in charge of the Senate, in charge of…”

“I say to my friend, it seems to me what we are facing is that the majority party, in charge of the Senate, in charge of the House, they want to replace the tough votes we have to take around here, that we should be taking around here--they want to replace the tough votes with slick 30-second TV ads to try to get through this election. That is breaking down, I think, the people's respect for the Senate. How can you have respect for an institution when we don't get anything done around here? When we say the only time we want to take up the tough issues is after the election, when there will be people here voting on these issues who may have been defeated or maybe not running again, what kind of responsibility, I ask the Senator from Minnesota, is that? We are shirking our responsibility. I hear more and more people saying they are getting dismayed with how the Congress is operating. People ought to be dismayed with the way this place is running right now. We are shirking our responsibilities around here in this regard. As I said, I have been on this Appropriations Committee for 15 years. I have been in the Senate for 15 years. I say to my friend from Minnesota, this is the most do-nothing Congress, the most do-nothing Senate I have seen in 15 years. It is really sad. The Senator talked about visiting schools. I spent all my summer going around visiting elderly people in the State of Iowa and getting story after story about their costs of prescription drugs.”