David Thomas: “I rise to talk about taxes, which is the focus of where we are, and prior to that, to mention that despite all the…”

“I rise to talk about taxes, which is the focus of where we are, and prior to that, to mention that despite all the discussions we have had about certain issues, this Senate has accomplished quite a bit in the several months we have been in session. That is our task; we ought to be doing that. A number of things have happened. First of all, we abolished the Clinton ergonomics regulation. We used a technique that allows the Congress to bring back regulations that are put in and to review them, which, quite frankly, is something we ought to be able to do on all regulations. I come from Wyoming. I was in the Wyoming Legislature. There, when you have a statute passed by the legislature, the rules are then put in by the appropriate agency, and those rules come back to the legislature to see if, indeed, they are consistent with the purpose of the legislation. That doesn't happen in the Congress. It is too bad. You can pass a law, and by the time the regulations are in, the concepts under the law can be quite different. In any event, this one was brought back on ergonomics. It was successfully overhauled in the Congress. That is good. Of course, we approved a deficit reduction budget, a budget that still has more expenditures perhaps than we ought to have. But in any event, it probably is about a 5-percent increase, which is less than the increases of the past number of years--less because when you have a surplus, it is awfully hard to hold down spending.”