Tom Coburn

It certainly shouldn't be paid for by the people of this country. When, in fact, it's a state issue.

Today we have made significant progress on the budget resolution. We had 10 rollcall votes on amendments to the resolution. The bill managers have done an exceptional job working through the process. That being said, we have many…

I am. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeMint). The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.

Transparency and reporting solves all that, not more rules, not more pads, not more things to mark down, but the fact is the American people need to see what we do and how we do it.

I don't believe lobbying reform is the problem. I believe Congress is, and we are going to do a lot of things over the next 3 to 6 months that are going to look good on paper, but until you change the motivations of the institution, you…

We are going to do a lot of window dressing, but in the long run, we are not going to change anything until we change the motivation that the next election is more important than anything else.

No, I do not. Mr. McCAIN. Here we are again, I say to my colleague from Oklahoma, when everybody wants to get out of town examining bils that have all kinds of things in them that we never saw or heard of. In the Statement of Managers…

My only request is that the Senator would allow my staff to be there as they make this presentation. We have done significant research on their expenditures on these conferences, and we would love to have the opportunity, if the Senator so…

I call up amendment No. 2093 and ask that it be considered and read. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, the pending amendment will be set aside. The clerk will report the amendment. The legislative clerk read as follows…

I ask the Senator from Missouri a couple of questions. Has he or any of his staff ever received requests from me for any earmark or any project whatsoever?

Has any other appropriations chairman ever received an appropriations request or earmark from me from any other area?

I will speak for a short time and then give my colleague from Minnesota a chance to finish, even though he opposes my amendment. The Pentagon has the ability to set that transaction fee on a per basis. They will be able to still fund it…

I will defer that at this time and have a discussion with the Senator from Utah about having a vote on this amendment.

I ask our colleagues to look at this for what it is. In the long run, we don't win; we lose. Even if it costs us nothing in terms of finance charges, in the long run the technology goes to China. We need to be investing in real jobs, real…

Do you believe the average American can get on a computer, after this bill comes through conference, and see where all the money is spent?

But the point is, don't the American people need to see that 20 percent? Shouldn't they be able to see that 20 percent?

I am trying to think of how to phrase this as a question. First, I think my statement was on discretionary spending, not mandatory spending in terms of my relationship to an increase in spending. I would think the Senator would agree that…

Yes. If you took the whole cost of the war today, it is less than half of this. The whole cost of the war is less than half of this, thus far. The fact is, tax policy aside, we could even agree on it--there is no question that $1 out of…

Therefore, it comes to the floor, does it not, with the recommendation of the Appropriations Committee? So we are equal partners in asking for that money. It is not just the administration.

We did pay off some Treasury bills. But the way you know when we pay down our debt is to look at our total debt and whether it declined at the time we did that. It did not. The total debt of the country rose every year we were paying that…

Competition helps to lower costs and improve quality, in health care as in the rest of the economy.

The reason it is there is because they wanted the direction on where to spend it. I understand the intention of the Senator from Philadelphia, his purpose. The reason I raise this question is I believe this is the wrong way we should be…

I have never seen such a high risk housing market as market after market thinks they are unique and for whatever reason are not likely to experience price decline. This typically signifies a bubble.

I thank the Senator. Based on that interpretation and my understanding that the Senator will ensure the conference report includes language that makes clear that a dependent child will be protected from discrimination under this…

One example of such discrimination cited in the past is based on prenatal testing. A 1996 report by the National Academy of Sciences cited a case in which a California HMO threatened to deny health care coverage to a child because that…