On the recordMarch 17, 2010
I thank the gentleman for yielding. My question is when you, as a party, deemed the debt increase of nearly $2 trillion, I would say that it makes any deeming of budgetary issues, even the Deficit Reduction Act reconciliation process, seem almost as a grain of sand. We might as well deem all votes and not even come here and answer mail in our offices if we are going to continue to deem one- fifth of the economy under government control. Mr. McDERMOTT. Ultimately, we have to go out and face this. And when we pass this health care bill, you are free to campaign against a bill that gives health coverage to 30 million Americans and that closes the doughnut hole. If you want, you can go home and argue with the seniors and say, I didn't want a bill that closed the doughnut hole. That was a stupid bill. I voted against it. What you are free to do after this bill passes is to go home and argue against the things that are in the bill. The people back home have no understanding what ``deeming'' is. It's inside baseball in this place. You wait, when you go and try, on the campaign trail, to sell the idea that you were against doing anything for 30 million people.
