Jack Kingston: “I rise to oppose this bill. As much as anything, I want to say the children's health care bill, you would think would…”

“I rise to oppose this bill. As much as anything, I want to say the children's health care bill, you would think would get a little more dignity in the process around here. This is a 299-page bill which we received, ``we,'' minority Republicans, received at 6 p.m. last night, or maybe even later than that. That doesn't give you a lot of time to work on a bill and have any kind of bipartisan deliberations. Plus, there is no motion to recommit. Now I know that is inside-the-Beltway stuff, but this is important if you are talking children's health care. What I do know is that in the bill, adults are still allowed to be covered by it. Adults can push poor children out of the way because States are going to politically favor them and let them have the opportunity to be insured. I know there is a massive tax increase. I know there is very little sympathy for smokers these days, but it is still a tax increase on the backs of the smokers. And in order to get enough money to pay for this, it would require 22 million new smokers in the United States of America. Now, maybe the Democrat Party is planning to pass out cigarettes at the schools and say to the kids: Hey, look, start smoking so you can finance your own insurance company. And you'll probably be needing it, by the way, wink-wink. But in the meantime, the government gets to grow. The bureaucracy gets to grow.”