Frank Pallone: “this is the ultimate Republican do-nothing Congress. I woke up this morning, and I called the cloakroom; and I could not…”

“this is the ultimate Republican do-nothing Congress. I woke up this morning, and I called the cloakroom; and I could not believe that they are going to simply pass a CR to carry the government over until January with the new Congress and not address all the pressing problems that we need to look at here. First of all, think about the fact that we have a budget crisis. We have a budget deficit now, it was announced a few weeks ago, of $150 billion. The effect on the economy, the downward trend on the economy that this will contribute to is unbelievable. Now, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) says, we may be adding another $30 billion to that because of the fact that we are wiping out these PAYGO provisions. So more deficits. We are in an economic downturn. Mr. Speaker, what is the Republican Party going to do here? What is the Republican leadership going to do about the economic slow down? Are they going to deal with the fact that we have a higher unemployment rate, that a lot of people's benefits for unemployment will end sometime in December? Are they going to address that? Are they going to address the fact that seniors are crying out for a prescription drug benefit? I read in the paper the other day that the President said he wants to address the need for a prescription drug benefit. Then why are we going home? Why are we not dealing with it? Why are we not figuring out how to pay for it? The energy crisis. We face a major energy crisis.”