Now is indeed an appropriate time to reflect on the 104th Congress. Yet your Oct. 1 editorial did not do that.

Instead, it offered blatantly biased criticism of the Congress (and let us all be clear that it is the Republican majority we are referring to) and a repetition of the same misrepresentations and untruths that the news media has been giving us for two years.

You called the Republican Congress “turbulent,” “blatantly partisan,” “confrontational” and “mean-spirited.”

But do you really suggest that things were any different when the Democrats controlled Congress? That seems difficult to believe, considering that it was the Democrats who were more bitter and rancorous than anyone, going so far as to accuse the GOP majority of being “Nazis.”

Overall, the 104th Congress was no more intemperate than usual.

Even more pathetic than your claims of unprecedented mean-spiritedness was your claim that the Republican budget would have “slashed” Medicare and Medicaid. This is purely and simply not true.

Anyone who can look at a program with a budget that grows faster than inflation and say that it’s being cut is in desperate need of a reality check.

Finally, your assessment of the Republican Congress left out its greatest accomplishment.

It kept its word.

The GOP members of Congress promised in the Contract With America to bring several measures that the American people supported up for a vote.

They did so.

Furthermore, they gave every effort to pass these bills, often in the face of tooth-and-nail opposition from Democrats.

The Republican Congress has done what it promised and worked hard to make America a better place.

They have earned the opportunity to continue their efforts.

Matt Kuhns

Freshman

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