James Traficant: “I would like to start out by commending the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), a fellow graduate of the University…”

“I would like to start out by commending the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), a fellow graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and a dear friend, for his work on health care. I believe if the Congress would work with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), we would continue to have improvements such as these that will incrementally improve the health-care system of America. I also want to commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), my neighbor, for working with our chairman and for aggressively working on problems of health-care needs for all the people of America. But I do want to encourage the Congress to continue to work carefully with the chairman. The health-care program that he is espousing makes a lot of sense. Mr. Chairman, this is a very simple amendment. It says people who get the money from this bill in the form of grants shall abide by the 'buy American' law which many of them forget to do, and they have to be prosecuted for such evasion. At least we can remind them and encourage them when expending these funds, where at all possible and practicable, to expend those funds in the purchases of American-made goods and services. It makes sense. It is common sense. I would ask that it would be included in the bill.”