Joe Barton

I was in the House when SCHIP was passed. I was not in the leadership, but I was on the committee. My recollection is a little bit different than my friend from Illinois. There were some Republicans, I think Senator Hatch was one of the…

I'm going to yield myself 2 minutes. I want to thank my friend from Illinois for being honest. This is all about politics. It's not about policy. It's not about the children. It's about politics. So I commend him.

I appreciate the gentleman that just spoke, but let's be factually accurate. There are over 600,000 adults under current law on SCHIP right now. They're not all pregnant women. Now, some of them may be, but not all 600,000, and nothing in…

everybody has said all that needs to be said on this debate; we just haven't said it this third or fourth time that we are here on the House floor. As the minority leader pointed out, at some point in time it still may be possible to reach…

I respectfully disagree with our distinguished majority leader. The bill before us is a change. It may be historic, but it is not positive. We are moving from a market-based energy policy, which has served this country well for over 150…

When I agreed to be the principal Republican sponsor of this legislation, I asked and was told that there would be a committee markup in the Judiciary Committee and that there would be amendments made in order. So I was a little bit…

I hope that the Members in the Chamber actually listened to the reading of the Clerk, because those that did will agree with me on the following things. First of all, we have taken the 293-page bill that we got at approximately 7 p.m. last…

we are here once again on an issue that should have been solved, like, March of this year. An emergency meeting of the Rules Committee was noticed at 7:30 last evening to be commenced at 8:30. That meeting lasted until midnight. Dr…

As a husband, as a father, as a former child, I respect very much what we are endeavoring to accomplish today. But we always have to remember that it is not simply enough to do the right thing; we must do the right thing the right way. And…

I want to talk about enforcement of this 300 percent above the poverty line. The people that wrote the bill claimed that we have got this hard cap above 300 percent in terms of family income. But if you look on page 76 of the bill, the…

I'm reminded of a homeowner who is getting ready to sell their home. It's a little older shop and it's shopworn and has not seen its best day. So they have a building inspector come out to inspect the home before they put it up for market…

what we have today is a classic case of a Washington, DC, nonintersecting conversation. Since the President vetoed this bill several weeks ago, my friends on the majority side have spent 2 weeks encouraging outside groups and perhaps their…

Madam Speaker and distinguished Members of the House of Representatives, I have in my hand a letter dated September 27 from myself and the majority of the Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee asking Speaker Pelosi to refer the…

At that time, we were told that we didn't have time for that, that we had to move that bill before September 30 so that the children of America wouldn't lose their health insurance. Well, that bill, the CHAMP Act, passed this body. It…

In the first year that SCHIP was in law, Texas is a biennial State in terms of its legislature so we weren't able to get the program up and running. But in the second biennium, we did get it up and running under then- Governor Bush's…

I now know who the problem is; it is those big, bad bully Republicans in the Senate. I didn't realize that.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent most of today actually trying to read the bill. I have the bill in front of me. In this 2-minute period, I want to discuss section 605 of the bill. Section 605 of the bill has the title: ``No Federal funding for…

The answer is no. I was allowed to testify at the Rules Committee last evening. That's the only formal opportunity I was ever given in the last 9 months on this bill.

I remind the body that the Democratic majority took over the House and the Senate in January of this year. They set the schedule. They set the agenda. They decide what hearings are held. They decide what bills are marked up. They decide…

Republicans want to reauthorize the SCHIP program. We do want to refocus it on the original intent of the program, which was near-low-income children in families between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. We understand that in the 10 years of…

But what that means is that they want illegal residents of the United States of America to get these benefits. That is what the objection means. So for that reason alone, I would ask that we vote against this bill.

Now that I know what the problem is, I am going to call over there. They are good friends of mine, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Grassley. And tell them that now that we have identified the problem, will they accept the language that Mr. Dingell…

I know we can. I think my time has expired, but I just want to commend him because now I know where the problem is. It is those big bad bully Republicans and these two wily negotiators, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Dingell, who are two of the most…

Mr. Speaker, since we have not had a markup and since we have not had a legislative hearing, and I know it is cumbersome to actually refer to specific sections of the bill on the floor, especially of what is portrayed to be a conference…

most of us are too young to remember, but in the early days of the movies there was a series of movies based on the ``Perils of Pauline.'' Pauline was a heroine who always got tied to the railroad track, and just as the train was bearing…