James A. Lewis

Thank you, Chairman Boustany, for holding this hearing.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to raise a question of committee procedure.

I find this unreal. It is unbelievable.

This is nothing other than a political witch hunt. The Ways and Means Committee is better than this.

I am mindful that the majority wants to cut Social Security. They want to cut Medicare.

This hearing is politically motivated and driven by AARP's support for the Affordable Care Act.

I am saddened that you have chosen to fulfill your duty in the manner displayed today.

I do not think we should single out just one organization.

It is my understanding that the report is 26 pages long with 243 footnotes and was only released on Wednesday.

Most of the funds requested for the Affordable Care Act are to assist taxpayers and improve operations, not for enforcement agents, as charged by some.

An estimated three million people will not have their telephone calls answered, and one million people will not receive face-to-face service at an agency center.

I have serious concerns about the Republican plans to cut funding for the agency, and effect that those cuts will have on our taxpayers.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Commissioner, again I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank you for your years of service.

The majority's plan to cut $600 million from the agency budget this year will result in $4 billion in lost revenue.

The Bush tax cuts have been in place now for almost 10 years and they have not created a single job.

There is about $100 billion in new discretionary funding in the bill that, of course, was hidden...

We were on the path to being more secure, and I think the work that this committee and others in Congress can do might get us there by 2012, but we are not there yet.

There are legal impediments to doing that, right, and that is a harm to the ability to secure our Nation's networks.

A place where public-private partnership makes sense is on information sharing.

As an individual more vulnerable? Yes. But as a Nation, is our critical infrastructure more vulnerable? Not as much.

It is not secure now.

I think we are on the cusp of being able to make that leap.

The development of technology has to be left to the private sector, and they are just the masters at it.

I think if we don't give DHS more authority, we will not succeed at this, and I think CFATS might be a useful model to think about.

We are contemplating filing an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that would raise the idea of employment status.