Matthew Russell: “I certainly have the deepest respect for my colleague from Oklahoma, and he and I see eye to eye on most issues, but on…”

“I certainly have the deepest respect for my colleague from Oklahoma, and he and I see eye to eye on most issues, but on this one, it makes no sense that we spend nearly 40 percent of the Value Added program--which, by the way, I never addressed Market Access Program, that was never even mentioned--but the Value Added program is not adding value when $250 billion of economic cost hits the United States; $27 billion comes from healthcare expenses; $25 billion to criminal justice; $12.5 billion to vehicle crashes. We all pay for this. {time} 1845 But why should we both promote and curtail it? We spend millions of dollars in the Federal Government to control and contain abuse and also rehabilitation programs, which are good. So we need to choose, Mr. Chairman. Are we for something, or are we against something? We may be one, we may be the other, but we cannot be both. Mr. Chairman, I know these are contentious issues, but it is interesting to watch in the course of our politics over time. This is not a partisan issue; this is an American issue. I say it is not partisan because if we were holding this debate 30 years ago you would have had a flip-flop, but as we have seen shift in parties in States and regions of the country, we might politically have parties go one direction or the other, but it seems like the special interests remain in the middle.…”