On the recordJuly 29, 2011
I thank the gentleman from Florida. One of my reasons for asking you for a little bit of your time this evening is one of these days I'm supposed to come here to the floor, and we're putting together an actual presentation of the Medicare actuary report to walk people through, both our citizens and our fellow Members here, the reality of the numbers. But there was so much rhetoric on the floor today, and even within the last couple of hours, that it became one of those ``it was time to come back here to the floor.'' These are some slides that we used about a week ago. And it was my great frustration, because how do you manage your government? How do you engage in this political process when we're operating under mathematical folklore? We're living in a fantasy land when you see Members walk up to that microphone, look the public in the eye through that camera and say, If we would just get rid of those incentives to buy corporate jets, if we would just tax Big Oil, if we would just tax those millionaires and billionaires. So one more time, we're going to actually walk through a little bit of mathematical reality so we might be able to start having an argument, a debate, a discussion that has some basis in fact instead of basis in, I'm going to say whatever is necessary from this microphone to get reelected. And it breaks my heart, but in my 7 months here, I think that happens an awful darn lot. A quick sample of where we are at today. That's a dollar bill.…
