Mark Souder: “I wanted to make a brief comment associating myself with your earlier remarks. One thing, I was a little concerned that…”

“I wanted to make a brief comment associating myself with your earlier remarks. One thing, I was a little concerned that you were going to discourage them from advocating socialized medicine when, in fact, you and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) and I owe a lot of our presence here, as you point out, to the fact that they advocated socialized medicine in 1993 and 1994. And I hope they continue to advocate that because it goes contrary to the American will. I want to associate myself with two other things that you said. I think it is very important for the Speaker and anybody watching this discussion to understand. When the venom comes out of the other side's mouth and they talk about the radicals and the people who are extremely conservative, the truth is that they are talking about, if anybody else, you and me and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn). Do you know what? I do not take tobacco money. I sent tobacco money back. I do not even take the affiliates of tobacco money. I, too, like you am concerned about the impact of tobacco on my kids. Yet we are the class of 1994. We are supposed to be these conservatives. Who are they talking about exactly? Furthermore, they talk about education and beating on it, saying we are not doing anything. In the higher education bill, there was bill developed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) that he worked with the President on called High Hopes. Not a lot of Members in on our side advocated that.”