Earl Blumenauer

I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: Page 17, line 6, after the dollar amount, insert ``(reduced by $100,000) (increased by $100,000)''. The…

I am prepared to close. I am going to close when you have exhausted your speakers.

I suggest this is the least-effective part of our overall defense inventory. I would hope that, in the future, when maybe we have a new administration willing to turn a page, when we have a Congress that is willing to entertain a broad and…

This seems to me to be a priority going forward, given the experience we have had with cost overruns and given how many elements that this committee is trying to juggle. The demands on the committee, I think, are remarkable. It is not a…

I hope this is a first step for us to have a systematic effort at the Federal level to be able to support these important programs to keep it out of the medicine cabinets and out of the sewer systems. I have introduced legislation that…

I appreciate that part of this is process and part of it is performance.

The compromise that was struck, and one that I thought was healthy, was to provide bonuses based on performance.

I personally have found the charade we went through for some 17 years kind of embarrassing, dancing away from an event we know nobody had any expectation should happen.

Why shouldn't we have the same rule apply to the 10,000 employees of the House of Representatives?

I am going to give all of my colleagues an opportunity to step up and to cosponsor legislation that would extend to Congress the same degree of scrutiny as they want to have for the IRS. Even though the IRS problem is much smaller than…

If I have more time later, I would be happy to be involved in a colloquy with you on this.

Let me rephrase my question: Does assisting the 7.3 million people who get tax credits under the Affordable Care Act qualify in your definition of taxpayer assistance?

Who are the 7.3 million people who get the tax credit under the Affordable Care Act? Does helping them fall within your definition of taxpayer assistance?

In reclaiming my time, if I may reframe the question, because I am not trying to trick the gentleman. I want to know what the impact would be on 7.3 million people if there were no money available to implement the Affordable Care Act. I…

In reclaiming my time, I am asking the gentleman: What would be the impact on the 7.3 million people who are claiming the tax credit under the Affordable Care Act, which you have not yet repealed and which still is the law of the land…

It is painful to listen to some of the rhetoric here on the floor that suggests that, somehow, the use of resources by the IRS is not dealing with customer service. The gentleman admitted that, under Republican leadership, they have worked…

It is dangerous to them; it is dangerous to society; and it is heartbreaking for their families. I have appreciated our conversations on that, going back and forth, and what you have tried to do to be able to make sure that the balance is…

If the gentleman would yield, I just want to say that one of the areas that is most contentious deals with when people, like the gentleman that you have pictured behind you, are going to be compelled to have treatment. You have been open…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it will be fun to engage in this conversation, and I appreciate your starting it because the testimony here today, I think, was very useful.

I commend that. The estimates I have seen is that a $10.25-per-barrel charge would translate maybe $.20, $.25 a gallon at the pump.

I appreciate laying out a vision for the future.

I appreciate the President staking out a bolder vision, in terms of what we should be looking at in a year.

No, in the history of the world this is bigger than what happened in Russia when the oligarchs took over public assets.

None of the evil things that were rumored happened.

If Kansas had been one of the 30 states that had actually expanded the program... would it make a difference?