John Boehner: “Just so the gentleman understands, and I appreciate his yielding, I am happy to come here and have this colloquy with…”

“Just so the gentleman understands, and I appreciate his yielding, I am happy to come here and have this colloquy with you about what is going to be on the floor and give you as much information as I can. Now, I see that my friend from Maryland today has decided to employ a new tactic in bringing campaign themes to the floor during the colloquy. Now, I would be happy to engage in those, but it is not what the colloquy is for. And so I would be happy to engage the gentleman. The Medicare drug bill has produced premiums for seniors far below, far below, any number that anyone ever expected. And what got us those low drug premium prices was the competition that was created in the creation of the program. Secondly, when it comes to the college loan program that the gentleman referred to that there were cuts, if the gentleman would look at the bill, he will realize that we widened the ability of more students to get to college under this program than we have ever had. The fact is there are higher numbers for grant programs, higher numbers for what you can borrow from the program, and it could not be working any better. And as a result, the Deficit Reduction Act that we passed last year did, in fact, save $12.5 billion that came out of the hides of the lenders who were involved in the program. So, again, I would be happy to engage you in this conversation, but we could probably do it under a Special Order rather than during the colloquy.”