Christopher Shays

Will you tell me who has decided that we brought all bills of merit? Who has made that decision?

After Judge Starr's report to Congress in September and his presentation to the Judiciary Committee in November, I concluded that impeachable offenses were not proven and that the proven offenses were not impeachable

Today we are at a historic point. We are at a point where this Democrat President and this Republican Congress have come together to get our country's financial house in order and balance the Federal budget. The President wanted more…

We are eager to have cosponsors on this legislation. This is bipartisan. It is a Democrat and Republican bill. It has the endorsement of the President of the United States and the cooperation of the EPA. This in fact is legislation they…

I do think between 1 and 6 is a very important time in a child's life. I think part of that is seeing a parent contributing to society and to their community. I want a young child to see a parent contributing to society.

I would love for a 4- and a 5- and a 6-year-old who is going to be influenced, that they would be influenced by seeing their parent work, and to see them at a gainful activity that is of community service. So I view that as a positive.

The gentlewoman might want to explain Christmas in April. People of all walks of life, some brought their children, and we painted and repaired inside and out.

It is interesting, if the gentlewoman would yield, probably not many people know what we did with foster care and adoption because there was not this rancorous battle between Republicans and Democrats. So it does not always get the…

It is kind of amazing to think that existing law does not allow hospitals and doctors to compete with the insurance industry in this very, you know, important effort of providing the best health care, and one thing I want to express some…

When you say we passed, we passed it the first time. You mean the one that was signed into law by the President.

The fact was we passed the legislation if it could have been signed into law by the President.

I had a senior who in one meeting, she gave me a stack of envelopes that must have been about 3 inches tall, many, many envelopes. They were all bills that she received. She received them all the same week. She simply said, why could they…

That is why when the gentleman says, the traditional view is that we are playing with dynamite, I was proud to go to my constituents and tell them. This is a plan I had worked on with the gentleman and others for literally years. We now in…

We want to balance the Federal budget and get our financial house in order; we want to save our trust funds for not only future generations but for present generations, because Medicare in particular is running out of money; and third, we…

But see, some people would call that a cut in the program. That is what is ludicrous about the description. If we save money in the program, therefore, do not have to spend as much because we eliminate an abuse like this, it is referred to…

And they get a choice. They get to choose a plan that could be better or a number of plans that could be better and in the end if they did not like those plans they could go back to the traditional system.

Exactly. That was one. The other area was that we made health care fraud a Federal offense in terms of Medicare and Medicaid so that you would not have to find someone guilty because of wire or mail fraud but you could find them guilty for…

The difference is that when he refers to it, he calls it a savings. When he refers to ours, he calls it a cut. But before we leave Medicare, I do not want to leave it without just summarizing the fact that we allow Medicare to grow from…

I remember being the chairman of the task force, on the Committee on the Budget, on Medicare and Medicaid, and I remember the fact that the gentleman was not going to vote for the plan unless we realized that urban areas were treated in a…

If the gentleman would just allow me to make the point that entitlements are 50 percent of the budget, and when we add interest payments, we are talking about two-thirds of the budget and the discretionary is only one-third of the budget.

I would emphasize again that this is a freeze amendment. We are not advocating that the Department of Defense spend less than we spend this year next year. We are advocating that they have a freeze. I am a member of the Budget Committee…

No, I think the gentlewoman is talking for the farmer, because the consumer is getting screwed in this system. The consumer is getting screwed.

No, no. We want to put a ceiling on that price, because by limiting supply, the supply may even go over $678. That is the irony. We talk about the manufacturer and we talk about the farmer. Who is talking for the consumer?

The bottom line is the price is double in this country what the world market price is.

So we have to get our financial house in order and balance that budget as the foundation. Not as the solution, but as the foundation for then saving our trust funds, which are obviously related to the first issue, but then, ultimately…