Madam Speaker, this is a Congress of missed opportunities, missed opportunities to modernize education for our children, missed opportunities to reform HMOs for the health care for all Americans, missed opportunities to save Social Security as a top priority, and a missed opportunity to protect the environment after we look at some of the proposals that have been put before us. We send this very mixed message from this Congress to the children of America. We tell them that education is important, it is for their self-enrichment, for their economic security and for the competitiveness of our country. We tell children that their health is important, they should not smoke because it is harmful to their health. Yet we do not provide them with access to quality education.
Children are smart.
They get the mixed message. Reforming HMOs would have been one clear message to the people of America that health is important to us. That is one of the missed opportunities of this Congress, to have us have a living wage in this country. Also, we threaten the pension security of America's children. Their health, their education, the economic security of their families are very, very important to our children and to the future of our country.