Thomas Daschle: “as we begin the first session of the 105th Congress, American families are asking some difficult questions, most of…”

“as we begin the first session of the 105th Congress, American families are asking some difficult questions, most of which seek answers affecting their lives directly. How am I going to put my kids through college? How do we pay the doctor bills if the kids get sick? Will I have enough money when I choose to retire? Our challenges this year ought to be to provide the answers to those questions. As we do, we all recognize the limits of Government, and we should all recognize the unlimited potential of achievement through bipartisanship. Everything important which we accomplished in the last Congress--health care reform, the minimum wage increase, mental health equity--was accomplished only when we realized that only by reaching across the aisle in an effective way, passing legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support, could we ultimately send the right message to the American people--that we hear them and we want to respond to the problems affecting their daily lives. If we remember that lesson and pick up in this Congress where we left off in the last one, then we can make this not only a productive Congress, but a historic one. We can, in this Congress, pass a budget for the remainder of this century, a plan that eliminates the deficit and invests in our people and their potential, so that the 21st century will be another American century.”