These are bills--and I know that the committee is aware of this--that other thoughtful Members like John Tierney and Dave Obey have introduced legislation.

Seventy-three percent of Americans believe that campaign contributions from the banking industry have played a major factor in the recent financial crisis.

the system is corrosive. And it is that corrosion of the system that affects our democracy.

When I used the term 'corrosive,' what I meant by that was the entire approach ends up being corrosive.

I am certain that many candidates would not be able to run for office without the public financing option.

More importantly, after I qualified for clean elections, I could spend the majority of my time talking to my constituents.

I think it gets more attention to the culture of your campaigns which we have kind of lost here in this arms race.

If we had full public financing here, a voluntary system...would we be struggling this week to figure out how to put together a health-care bill?

The last thing the American people need is for this body to heap greater debt on the backs of our progeny for the sakes of political campaigns.

What it seeks to do, I think, is end the corrosive part of this process and then provide an opportunity to put the public back in charge.

As the Speaker of the House, I am engaged in recruiting candidates to run for the legislature.

This Subcommittee has a mission of working on a bipartisan basis to ensure the safety and well-being of children.

The legislation we put forward would provide a dedicated funding source to ensure many more children receive the benefits of home visitation.

I agree and I think we ought to proceed down that road.

When we passed that bill, I said at the time our job is far from done.

Our goal, however, should not be to give foreigners more rights than Americans have.

I agreed that they represented a good balance.

I do think that we have been assigned to have a look and see if it can be made better. We need to do that.

I mean, I think the challenge for U.S. negotiators is that in many--for U.S. foreign investors in other jurisdictions, we want to obtain greater substantive rights for our investors than domestic investors may have in those countries.

On transparency, as the chairman of the U.S. chapter of Transparency International, I think it is very important...

I would like to thank you, Mr. McDermott, for your efforts leading to this legislation.

We were very pleased to work with Representatives Doggett and Cooper on the Safe Markets Development Act, which reflects these concepts.

I am concerned that we are moving in a situation here where we are not looking at both the costs and the consequences.

I think it is safe to say that we are embarking on waters that have been uncharted and that, indeed, this is a historic move on this Committee's part.

the approach proposed in Congressman Larson's H.B. 1337 and Congressman McDermott's H.B. 1683.