Joe Barton: “Let me start out by stating that the majority is trying to fix a problem that I do not think really exists. We have sent…”

“Let me start out by stating that the majority is trying to fix a problem that I do not think really exists. We have sent out 33 million coupons: 22 million of those coupons have been redeemed, and 11 million coupons are outstanding. The outstanding coupons are being redeemed, I think, by about 500,000 a week, something like that. In my opinion, you could keep the hard date and not have a problem, but if you think there is a problem, it is not from lack of money. We have appropriated $1.3 billion. About half of that is still in the Treasury, but as I pointed out before, it cannot be released for additional coupons because they assume that 100 percent of the coupons are going to be redeemed. So what this means is the redemption rate is only about 52 percent. Once you send out a coupon, you have to wait for 90 days until it is either redeemed or until it expires before you can release an additional coupon. If we really, really think that we need to do something, the simple thing to do is not appropriate but to authorize $250 million at $40 a coupon box. That is $240 million. You have authorized enough money to send out coupons, however many you can send, to these 6.5 million Nielsen household families that my good friend from Virginia talks about. Yet the majority has chosen not to do that. They have insisted that we have to delay the program.”