The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“FIRST 100 DAYS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S4399-S4400 on April 12, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FIRST 100 DAYS
Mr. REID. Mr. President, last November, the call for change in Washington rang out from coast to coast. The Presiding Officer was one of the results of that historic vote on November 7, which has been good for the people of the State of Maryland and for the people of this country. The American people called for us to put partisanship aside in pursuit of common ground, to end the culture of corruption, to cast away the rubber stamp, and, most importantly, to change the course in Iraq. This Congress has heard that call. As we reach our 100th day, we are well on our way to delivering a government as good and honest as the people it serves.
From the very first day, we knew all our progress would depend on renewing the people's faith in the integrity of Congress. And just as an aside, Mr. President, I would note that while I am not much of a poll watcher, it was brought to my attention earlier this week that the polls showed the American people are much more supportive of the Congress than they were just a few months ago. A lot of that is as a result of what we have been able to do here.
Our first order of business was passing the toughest lobbying ethics reform legislation in the Nation's history, and we have done that. We voted to give working Americans a much deserved and long overdue raise in the minimum wage. We passed a continuing resolution that enacted tough spending limitations, and earmarks were eliminated. We passed every single recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, after they languished in the Congress for years with nothing being done. We passed a responsible pay-as-you-go budget that cut taxes for working people and invested more in education, veterans, and health care. And I might say that as a result of Senator Johnson being incapacitated for the next few weeks, we were able to pass that budget even though the margin here was 50 to 49. We had two brave Republicans to join with us on this very sound budget, which we appreciate very much--Senators Snowe and Collins--and it was done even though in the past the Republicans couldn't pass the budget with a much larger majority than we have.
Yesterday, we passed legislation offering the promise of stem cell research in a responsible, ethical way, with 66 votes--or actually 63, but three Democratic Senators were unable to be here. They would have voted for that. So 66--1 short of being able to override the promised veto of the President. I think it is very possible we will get this bill, and it will be the first to override the President's veto. I think we can do that. There must be another Republican who will step forward, in a profile in courage, and vote with us and give hope to millions of Americans.
In the weeks ahead, we will turn our focus to reducing drug costs for senior citizens. That is going to be a battle because the wealthy, strong, powerful pharmaceutical industry has hired nearly every lobbyist in town--those with Gucci shoes and chauffeur-driven limousines--and they have been flooding this Capitol to prevent the American people from having the benefit of Medicare being able to negotiate for lower priced drugs. The big HMOs, the health care providers, and the insurance companies can but not Medicare. What does that say? It says the pharmaceutical industry is way too powerful. But we are going to have a shot at it. We will see how much power the pharmaceutical industry has over the Senate. On this side of the aisle, they have very little power, but we will see how much power they have over on the other side of the aisle. So we are going to try to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower priced drugs.
We are going to do our very best to develop a new strategy for energy, and we are going to act as quickly as we can to see what we can come up with regarding comprehensive immigration reform. We passed something here last year. We did it without the help of the President. With the help of the President this year, maybe we can do better. I certainly hope so. He says he wants to help, but actions speak louder than words.
All the while, during these first 100 days, as I mentioned, we retired the rubber stamp and restored Congress to its rightful, constitutionally mandated role as a coequal branch of Government. The Bush administration is finally being held accountable for some of its failures--and I say some of them, whether the political manipulation at the Department of Justice, where we learned today that all the e-mails dealing with their so-called political computers appear to have been destroyed or hidden--just part of the manipulations of this very historic Justice Department, and I mean historic in the sense of being the most corrupt ever, the most inept ever. We have also been able to look at this administration for its failures at Walter Reed, the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed, and the tragic mishandling of the war in Iraq.
No message was more clear in November than the call for a new direction in Iraq. Yet, in the months that have passed, President Bush has only dug us deeper, deeper in this intractable civil war going on in Iraq. Now we hear the Army will be forced to put further strain on the troops by extending their tours of duty from 12 to 15 months. Next, the Marine Corps will have added time to their already strained forces.
Today, although you didn't read it in the paper because it happened since the papers went to print, a bridge in Iraq was blown up right in the city of Baghdad, with cars piled up off of that. They do not know how many are dead as a result of that. In the Green Zone, inside the Iraqi Parliament, a bomb went off today, killing members of Parliament. They do not know how many, maybe only a couple. We don't know at this stage. But many were injured right in the Iraqi Parliament.
Policing the civil war was never supposed to be the mission, and every day the price we pay grows worse and worse--3,300 American lives lost, tens of thousands more wounded, and about $\1/2\ trillion spent. That is $\1/2\ trillion that could go to health care for the 47 million Americans who have no health care and to look at what we are going to do about the children dropping out of school and to do something to provide monies for the Leave No Child Behind Act, which could help education around our country. This $\1/2\ trillion spent, yet no end in sight, according to our President, for the troops. More of the same.
It takes more than saying we support our troops to make it so, and in these first 100 days, this Congress put words to action. Our emergency supplemental appropriations bill gives the troops every single penny requested by the commanders on the ground, plus it gives more than the President requested. It provides a reasonable, realistic strategy to draw them out from the crossfire of another country's civil war, and it provides funds that the President's budget left out to make right the unconscionable situations at Walter Reed and other VA medical facilities, because our troops do deserve that support. The support of the American troops doesn't end when they leave Iraq; it must continue when they come home to American soil.
No single piece of legislation will bring this tragic war to a climax. The American people understand that, but they elected us to lead the way, to chart a new course, showing President Bush the way forward, and in these first 100 days, we have done precisely that on the war in Iraq and the issues here at home.
In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to do the very best we can to change the direction at home and abroad.
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