I want to tell anyone who is willing to listen that we have a tremendous record of accomplishment in supporting our troops. Not just saying the words, but supporting the troops with our actions, not just our words. And we are in the sixth…

last month the Bush administration approved the Federal bailout of an investment giant, Bear Stearns. You would have thought that the crisis on Wall Street would have opened the administration's eyes as to what is happening on Main Street…

I'm proud of this budget because it continues on the great work that we did last year after years and years of chronic underfunding of the veterans health care system. We added $13 billion in funding for the VA, which is the largest…

Now, almost exactly 1 year later, I am proud to rise in support of the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. This much-needed legislation will eliminate the discrepancies between health insurance coverage for mental and…

And I want to commend Dr. Kagen for his leadership on this issue. As all of our colleagues know, Dr. Kagen, right from the very start, has made health care his priority here in Congress using his expertise. I have a health care background…

I can't think of a group that we should be helping more than our Nation's veterans. And to have a budget submitted to us at a time when all of us can agree that there is nothing more important than taking care of the people who are putting…

Over the past 20 years, the average price of textbooks has nearly tripled. College students now spend $1,000 a year on textbooks, and for some majors it can be up to $2,000. This dramatic rise in textbook prices is a significant…

So for this administration to have the worst record of job creation since the Hoover administration, I think really spells out the failure of these economic policies.

I would say, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, not to interrupt, but the President did tell us last year that he was going to reduce the deficit, and I see here that last year we had a $410 billion deficit. And he did, in fact, reduce it. Let's give…

I'm being facetious, obviously. A $407 billion deficit for 1 year is a very significant deficit, third highest ever submitted behind only the budget he submitted last year and the budget from 2004. But I really appreciate the gentlewoman…

What are the nations that we're talking about here when we're talking about foreign-held debt? What are some of the countries that we are lending this money to?

And, Mr. Murphy, you're leaving out one of the key facts, that they live in a world where you can charge everything to the national credit card. Everything that you do, every expense of the Federal Government, just charge it to the credit…

And I know that the gentlewoman is going to talk about this next issue, and Mr. Murphy and I talked last night at great length about the fact that the second largest line item on the budget that the President submitted to us on Monday, the…

And it's particularly frustrating to Mr. Murphy and I, who are in our first term and we had our second State of the Union address just last week, a week ago, and the President of the United States stood right behind where I am standing…

Unfortunately, it didn't. The President, a week later, submits to Congress a budget that's $407 billion out of balance. And we're living in a time when the second largest line item in the Federal budget that is before us is the interest on…

What I am most proud of that this Congress did last year was we had the highest funding increase for veterans health care in the 77 year history of the VA. We had to fight tooth and nail. We had to do it over multiple opportunities…

I'm sure the gentleman from Connecticut would agree that it's ironic, given the fact that it was a week ago that we sat here together in this Chamber and listened to the President's State of the Union Address. And I liked some of what the…

Absolutely. And I thank the gentleman for that story. And I've had similar circumstances in my district where people wonder why we are cutting Alzheimer's funding, where they have a loved one who has struggled with that disease. I also…

And the gentleman knows that there are three legs to this stool that we are talking about. One is the increase in spending leading to the deficit. One is the misplaced priorities of the cuts to programs that are critically important. The…

And the gentleman from Connecticut represents a district in some ways that is similar to my district. We both have a manufacturing base that has suffered in recent years as a result of the global economy and a variety of factors. And as…

we're here this evening as part of the Speaker's 30-Something Working Group, and I'm going to be joined by some other members of that group who will be familiar faces to our colleagues who have participated in these Special Orders…

I appreciate that. The fact is the Democrats in this Congress have made the tough decisions. We submitted a budget last year, and I am sure we will do so again this year that achieves balance for the first time since the previous…

I would only point out on that note that this is the sixth year in a row that this budget raises health care costs on 1.4 million veterans, imposing $5.2 billion in increased copayments on prescription drugs and new enrollment fees on…

The assumption that was made in putting this budget together by the administration, by President Bush, was that Congress would act on the Alternative Minimum Tax, and, of course, we will. We are not going to allow that to lapse, which…

And the gentleman knows there is another thing that our regions in the country share and that is that we have harsh winters. We have been known to have harsh winters. And another thing that gets cut in this budget inexcusably is home…