Cliff Stearns: “I thank my distinguished colleague, and let me just say to the gentleman from California, who is just getting ready to…”

“I thank my distinguished colleague, and let me just say to the gentleman from California, who is just getting ready to leave the floor, when he mentioned that Republicans are going to prevent tobacco prevention of our youth today, he and I both know there is a separate program in CDC just for tobacco prevention and, in fact, in this so-called PPHF, which all of us have called a slush fund, which is the prevention and public health fund, there is, right now, $191.685 million for this spending for tobacco prevention. After this bill passes, there would be $109 million still remaining in this for that smoking and health component of CDC. I say to the gentleman from Massachusetts and Mr. Hoyer of Maryland, I mean, you're yelling fire and there's no fire. I mean, I can go through all these things to show you that your arguments are wrong. The fact that Sebelius, the head of the Health and Human Services, has said publicly--as the gentlelady from Alabama so eloquently pointed out-- she, in fact, pointed out that this so-called slush fund is not going to impact what Mr. Hoyer says, dealing with women, families, and children. They bring up Rep. Wiliam Natcher. Well, Mr. Natcher says it's very noble, very good, and you constantly use that. But I'm just going to take you through these different areas where you say that it's going to be unable to provide support for families and women and children.…”