Sylvester Turner

this motion to recommit reports the bill back to the committee with the suggestion that it be amended to reduce the tax cut provisions in an amendment necessary to fund the war on terrorism and to protect the public safety. It provides…

I want to address these remarks to the families of the victims, those who were injured on September 11. One of the best provisions of this bill is that this Congress has provided a method whereby all those injured, the victims of those who…

Yesterday our Nation was a target of the most despicable and cowardly acts of terrorism in our history. We come here today, our hearts heavy, with prayers for healing and comfort for the many victims and their families. The forces of…

we have heard a lot today from the other side about the need for balance between giving patients protections and holding down the cost of health insurance premiums. In Texas, we have had 4 years of experience under our patient protection…

this is a sad day for patients and their doctors. A good bipartisan bill, the Patients' Bill of Rights, went down to the White House yesterday and came back as the insurance companies' bill of rights. It went down to the White House as the…

I represent 19 counties in the Second Congressional District in Southeast Texas, all of those counties were declared a disaster area during the recent tragedy of the Tropical Storm Allison. I think we all come to the floor today with a…

this budget fails to account for the fact it will return us to deficit spending and it will spend money already committed to Social Security and Medicare. That is why the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition voted yesterday to oppose…

I am sure there are many seniors out there tonight that wonder what happened; how could all of these Members of Congress be campaigning for office, talking about how committed they were to helping our seniors afford prescription drugs, and…

I like what you said there about a prescription drug benefit for our seniors and fair pricing for all of us would be as good as a tax cut. It is not unusual for us to run into people who are paying $400 and $500 or more a month just to…

I would like to talk about a subject this evening that has been ignored, I think, for the entire Congress that we have been in since the first of the year, an issue that many of us feel very strongly about, an issue that many of us…

I had the opportunity in my district to be in several pharmacies to talk about this issue, and just as I was there talking about the issue people would come in trying to fill their prescriptions. One lady came to the gathering that was…

I do think it is hard for the American people to understand why they are paying so much higher prices for prescription medicines than any other people around the world. The answer to that is really quite simple, because every other country…

many Members on both sides of the aisle know that we can do better than the version of H.R. 8 that is before us today. The average number of estates each year subject to taxation in a congressional district in this country is 115. Just…

The Blue Dog Democrats led the effort during this past week to try to urge this Congress to adopt a budget first before we take the important votes on tax cuts for the American people. The Blue Dogs and the 33 Members that are members of…

the House will take up and consider a major tax cut today without ever having first adopted a budget to see if the tax cut will fit within that budget. No American family, no business would engage in major spending without first adopting a…

the House is being asked today to do something that no family or no business in this country would do, and that is embark on major financial decisions without first having a budget. The Congressional Budget Act was passed for the purpose…

I had heard a few months ago that the interest payment on the national debt was the third largest category of Federal expenditures. Is that correct? I think Social Security and perhaps national defense might have been a little bit ahead of…

the President's recently submitted general budget outline leaves a lot of questions remaining about his tax cut plan. Frankly, it appears that trying to fit his tax cut into a realistic budget is like trying to fit a size 11 foot into a…

It has been a pleasure to hear the gentleman from Colorado express his points of view, and I believe there are many areas where we find common ground, particularly in the commitment to try to hold down the level of government spending. I…

I really do hope, however, that we will all at least come to the point where we will agree as a House, as a legislative body, that the budget act that we are governed by, requiring a concurrent budget resolution before we have tax cuts or…

it sounds like to me if the gentleman's constitutional amendment had been the law in the Federal Government, that the trust funds of the Federal Government would be just like the trust funds that I am familiar with from my service in the…

I am not for putting forth the proposition that by giving a tax cut would reduce spending. What I am saying is that at least in my tenure on this floor, that if we do not allocate those funds for a tax cut, those funds will be consumed in…

It seems to me that this debate comes right back down to where the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) said we were in his remarks earlier this evening. The question that must weigh on the minds, I hope, of every Member of this Congress…

reclaiming my time, so the gentleman says that 13 years from now, in 2014, we start paying more Social Security benefits than we have income into the Social Security Trust Fund and payroll taxes, and at that point in time is when we need…

I would say to Charlie, each member of our delegation shares in your loss and we express our deep sympathy to you. I guess the best story I ever heard about your father was really not about his early political races or about his 37 years…