Why don't you share with us a little bit of what the State of New York needs to do on infrastructure repair and how to prevent it from happening again.

Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko. Mr. Higgins, I see that you would like to get into this also. I know that you're there. So please pick up this conversation and carry it on.

I thank you very much for bringing that up. It's not only an issue on the east coast; it's an issue in the Midwest, it's an issue in the West, it's an issue all across this Nation. The climate is changing. The storms are more severe and…

Thank you, Mr. Tonko. Once again, we have a challenge ahead of us. Mr. Higgins, I know that this has been one of your principal issues here in the House of Representatives. If you would like to wrap up on this piece of our discussion…

You're absolutely correct that if we're to deal with the deficit, we have to put Americans back to work. The infrastructure has, over the years, been a principal way in which you employ Americans--we did this with the stimulus bill and it…

Our colleague, Sheila Jackson Lee, before she left, she brought this issue up. In the House today is the tax program that would continue the tax reductions for the middle class.

Only in a free-market system would Congress pass a law to prohibit negotiating prices, which, I think, is kind of the essence of a market system. You raised a couple of points, and I just want to use a chart to expand on those points. The…

Exactly. As those other services roll out, they will affect not only the Medicare portion of the health care system, but they will also affect the general population and should, because of the availability of insurance and the availability…

That's a very good point, but let me interrupt. They were calculating an inflation rate that continued at this level. They did not calculate a reduction in the inflation rate. And in the more recent estimates of cost savings, they're now…

I come to the House floor to celebrate the life of one of California's greatest native sons, the Ambassador of Jazz, Dave Brubeck. The man behind the immortal classics like ``Take Five'' and ``Blue Rondo a la Turk'' was born in Concord…

Thank you for the opportunity. We're going to spend a good portion of this hour talking about something that is on everybody's mind, the fiscal cliff. Oh my goodness, the fiscal cliff is now just, well, 20 days away. So what are we going…

I guess, as politicians--all 435 of us--what happens when we get elected is we often read the polls. Hmm, let's see here: 67 percent of Americans are opposed to increasing the age from 65 to 67-- 71 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of…