Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. It may have been explained before I got on the floor, so if I am repeating something that has already been said, I want to apologize in advance. But I do want the American people to know what this bill does. It is a bill that takes eight existing laws, and as I understand it, extends them for 1 month. It takes the unemployment insurance fund, extends it for a month; the COBRA premium assistance fund, extends it for a month; the Medicare physician freeze, it prohibits that for another month--or the cut to physician reimbursement under Medicare. An extension of Medicare therapy caps, extension for a month. A very unusual situation where we are going to use 2009 poverty numbers instead of 2010 poverty numbers, because apparently in 2010 the poverty level in the United States went down, so the majority wants to use 2009 numbers so that there will be larger payments for some of the poverty programs, which is interesting given that the deficit is over a trillion dollars this year. {time} 1515 An extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, extension of the Satellite Television Home Viewer Act, a program out of the transportation committee to repay furloughed workers on highway projects, those are the eight current laws that are being extended. There is also a technical fix on health IT in terms of the definition of doctors that worked for hospitals or worked for clinics.…”