Roy Blunt

Well, I appreciate my friend's comments. We look forward to that happening. I think we all will benefit from more debate, more discussion. That has always been the desire here, and often the minority doesn't feel like they get quite their…

I thank my friend for that response. I would ask further, if there are additions like that, which the obvious place to determine the merits of those additions is the House floor, will there be the opportunity for amendments and the ideas…

I would like to inquire further on the topic of the continuing resolution. I know the appropriations chairman has said that that would be a resolution that would not have earmarks in it. First of all, is that still the position of the…

Alaska, which the majority leader wondered about the population there, has 626,000 people. Wyoming has about 420,000-some people. In terms of the decision to have the relationship with the Territories, that was not made anticipating that…

Okay. This only happened in one Congress, which was the Congress in 1993 and 1994. I wasn't in Congress at the time, but I recall it was very controversial, I believe the gentleman suggested so controversial that there was a court case…

Reclaiming my time on that, in the committees my understanding is if the Delegates in the committees, if their vote is the vote that makes the difference in committee work, that vote does not have to be taken again. There is a fundamental…

I would be glad to find out the substance of that meeting this morning. I doubt it was very substantive or could not have been done yesterday. I think all the Members understand this discussion. I think the general coverage of Congress…

I am reminded of a friend of mine, when I was the Secretary of State in Missouri, who was the leader, the Democratic leader in the State Senate, was fond of saying: If you can't change your mind, you can't change anything. I am absolutely…

I would say on the significant portions of those bills that we voted on in the last Congress and passed, virtually every Member of the majority then, the minority now, voted for 39 of the 41 9/11 provisions. We voted for increasing the…

I think it is only fair to say that while we did discuss these two issues, the last two bills you mentioned, it was only in moments before the colloquy, and I think our leader only received notice these things were coming up within a few…

I would just again say this is not the place, I suppose, to have the debate on PAYGO for taxes or the PAYGO for spending or all the PAYGOs, but you do have the PAYGO rule. Maybe I was inarticulate suggesting not to debate the merits of the…

I rise today, in fact, in support of most of the efforts that are in this bill because most of the efforts in this bill were things that the Republicans in control of the Congress worked to pass on the House side of the building just in…

Certainly seeing the legislation is a step in the right direction. We believe another step in the right direction will be to be able to offer the amendments and go through the process that the majority assured us in the recent campaign…

I, too, thought yesterday was an historic day for the House, and a day that our Members all appreciated the historic nature of the day. Particularly on this side of the aisle, we appreciated the Speaker's comments about moving towards…

I thank my friend for the response. Seeing the legislation is obviously helpful. We are really regretful we don't have a chance to offer an alternative in the real-time. We will look at the legislation. We will see if we can find a…

As you know, most of our Members voted against the rule which brings these issues to the floor without the chance to offer an alternative. We believe there is a desire to create more opportunities for alternatives, but the sooner that can…

I would say that there clearly will be days in this Congress when we just simply don't agree with the goal that we are trying to achieve on the two sides of the aisle, but I think we can find many more days when we do agree. We are…

You have to be curious. You have to ask all the questions you can think of.

I think that Iran has more potential than any other country to destabilize the world today. President Bush should be given the tools necessary to work toward a diplomatic solution in the crisis that we now face with Iran and that Iran…

I hope that he can solve this problem for himself. And I wish him well. And I'm particularly concerned about any pages who may have been involved.

Chairman Davis, thank you for yielding, and thank you for your great work on this bill. Mr. Speaker, this week we are having a discussion in the House about earmarks and earmark reform. Yet there is another process in the Federal…

I thank Chairman Barton for yielding and for bringing this bill to the floor. The chairman and members of our committee, particularly Mrs. Johnson from Connecticut on the Ways and Means Committee, have been so instrumental in getting this…

yielding myself 15 seconds, I would like to point out that clearly this is in absolute agreement with Marbury v. Madison. Even in that case, the Chief Justice dismissed cases later when the Federal courts had not been granted jurisdiction…

If my friend is yielding to me, the principal sponsor of the bill, Mr. Akin, has said he would like to respond to that. If that is appropriate, I would like for that to be our response.

I yield 3 minutes to the principal sponsor of the bill, my colleague from Missouri (Mr. Akin).