Tom Coburn: “The gentleman's argument is that the city should not have to live with the consequences of their own rules on their own…”

“The gentleman's argument is that the city should not have to live with the consequences of their own rules on their own citizens and, therefore, the Federal Government should make up that difference. That is what we are talking about. The question that I would have for the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from Massachusetts, if in fact that is true and they do not want to support this amendment, then surely they will consider the next amendment. The reason that that is, is because if in fact we are going to take the premise that a city can require people to live within their district and then say the housing costs are so high we cannot afford to pay to fulfill this rule, that the Federal Government ought to come along, is it not fair to create in that mix a broad spectrum of people? The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush) is going to say it is equally important to have a nurse there, a health care professional there. What can be wrong with that? Why would we not want to advantage nurses?”