Michael Burgess: “Tonight, Mr. Speaker, I thought it is appropriate that we talk a little bit more about the stimulus plan, the spending…”

“Tonight, Mr. Speaker, I thought it is appropriate that we talk a little bit more about the stimulus plan, the spending plan that we will have on the floor of the House I believe tomorrow. In fact, the actual text of the bill has not been completely released yet. My understanding is that it become available at about 8:00 p.m. eastern time tonight. So we don't have the final wording on the stimulus bill. In fact, the bill as it went to conference the other day was 1,425 pages. As you can see, this is going to be a daunting task for any Member of Congress to read through between 8:00 tonight and whatever time we have our vote tomorrow. But I do hope that many Members will take the time to spend as much time with the bill this evening as is practical, because obviously this is a very, very big bill. It encompasses a great deal of policy, both energy policy, health policy, some health information technology infrastructure policies we heard from the previous hour, and will affect the lives of literally every American over the next many, many years, because the cost of this bill is something that is going to be borne by Americans for the next decades. In fact, many Americans who have not been born yet will be bearing the consequences of this bill well into their adult lives, because the price tag of this bill as has been advertised will be just a little bit under $800 billion. Well, that is $800 billion, $788 billion, in actual spending.”