Drew Ferguson: “I do not understand the purpose of this amendment. It is designed to restrict information used by the President's…”

“I do not understand the purpose of this amendment. It is designed to restrict information used by the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Just because a Member does not like the findings of an independent study does not mean we should be trying to prevent the White House from using that information. What kind of precedent would this set? Where can Congress stop in restricting the President's Council of Economic Advisers and the executive branch from discussing the findings of independent studies? What other type of economic data will Members try to restrict then? The $800 million figure that the gentleman from Ohio cites is from a 2003 Tufts University study. Is Tufts University no longer able to provide information to this government with studies? Which university will be next? Harvard University? Are they good enough? Princeton? It seems to me Tufts University is a good source of independent information. This information was put together independently. It was not created out of thin air. It was not created by the White House. The fact is this amount of money that pharmaceutical companies spend on R&D is considerable. They spend enormous resources on research and development. In 2003, pharmaceutical companies spent an estimated $33.2 billion on research and development.…”