No money for health care, or food but for a laptop we got it

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

         WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Congress moved further into the
computer age Thursday when House Speaker Newt Gingrich and
Librarian of Congress James Billington announced that a new
information system called Thomas, after Thomas Jefferson, was
now available to people around the world.
         The database of congressional information, including the
full texts of House bills, will be available through Internet.
It will vastly expand online information available when it
becomes fully operational, the Library of Congress said.
         Gingrich hailed the new system during an appearance before
the House Ways and Means Committee saying that information on
the House would now be available in 84 countries.


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         And he gave the committee what he called ``a nutty idea,''
to get members ``thinking beyond the norm.''
         ``Maybe we need a tax credit for the poorest Americans to
buy a laptop,'' he said.
***********
         ``Now, maybe that's wrong, maybe it's expensive, maybe we
can't do it, but I'll tell you, any signal we can send to the
poorest Americans that says, 'We're going into a 21st century,
third wave information age, and so are you, and we want to carry
you with us,' begins to change the game.''