John Spratt

Mr. Garrett. I thank the chairman and I thank the witness, Dr. Romer, for being here today.

Insurance companies should not be allowed to cherry pick those who they cover based upon pre-existing conditions.

There must be universality of access to health care.

Every child in America deserves health care coverage. We cannot continue to place selfish ideology above the health of our children.

I ask unanimous consent that before concluding that members who did not have an opportunity to ask questions of our witness be given 7 days to submit questions for the record.

Thank you very much indeed.

Can we conclude from what you have just said and from what you are seeing that the favorable factors in our economy today may be glimmers of hope, may be harbingers of an economy that is recovering?

I think it is a widely held view that all of those actions have had positive effects on the economy.

an approach which relies on giveaways instead of relying upon auctions would, represent the largest corporate welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the United States.

Over the last year and a half some truly extraordinary steps have been taken, including the so-called TARP program, the Recovery Act program, and the Fed's own actions to make an extraordinary amount of collateralized loans to its member…

This year, Congress has passed and the President has signed into law a $787 billion recovery package to spur demand and create 3 million new jobs.

We convene today to review the state of our economy, a dismal state, and its interaction with the budget.

To help put the economy back on its feet, Congress enacted the Troubled Assets Relief Program in October.

simply giving away pollute-for-free allowances to certain industries does not work.

He is very helpful to us. Has been. A wonderful individual to work with.

Thank you for your excellent testimony and for the fine work that the General Accounting Office has done for us.

Thank you for your very excellent testimony and for the fine work that the General Accounting Office, now the Government Accountability Office, has done for us.

Without the Federal Government, we will simply guarantee that there are not enough resources to get the basically required infrastructure built, renewed and maintained.

All politics is local.

I deeply appreciate the opportunity for the Budget Committee to have now its second hearing.

the person that has been most consistent about seeing that we investigated, looked farther into the future and considered alternatives for building roads, bridges, and needed infrastructures is Earl Blumenauer

We need to support those efforts.

I respectfully request the committee not only provide for full funding of the BRAC recommendations but also provide legislative language to prioritize any BRAC construction related to Defense Health Programs.

This Congress has a once in a generation opportunity to really rethink our transportation network.

I strongly support advance funding for the VA, which would essentially fund the VA one year ahead of time in order to be more efficient.