Jeff Miller: “back in April when this House originally was slated to vote on this matter, I came to this floor to denounce the draft…”

“back in April when this House originally was slated to vote on this matter, I came to this floor to denounce the draft of the Older Americans Act and to vote against it under suspension because I believed it was unfair to Florida. Clay Shaw, Carrie Meek, Bill McCollum, and I and the rest of the entire delegation from Florida wrote to the authorizers to demand that the funding formula under Title III, the formula that distributes money for programs such as Meals on Wheels, be changed to reflect modern realities. The draft of H.R. 782 used 1987 Census data to distribute money. We all know that there are more seniors in Florida today than there were in 1987. Our nation just spent over $6.5 billion to get the best Census data possible but this Congress would essentially ignore it by passing a 5 year reauthorization locking in 1987 data to the year 2003. I want to thank Chairman Goodling and Subcommittee Chairman McKeon, and Mr. Martinez and Mr. Clay for their willingness to be flexible to the concerns raised by the Florida delegation. The art of compromise is important and is the result of hard work by many members on both sides of the aisles. This final version is not 100 percent of what I wanted, but it is much better for Florida than the status quo. As such, I want to thank them for their leadership in seeking to resolve questions. The compromise applies to all new monies in Title III.”