Jim Matheson: “I appreciate my friend and colleague, Mr. Paulsen, for organizing this. I think at the outset what should be noted most…”

“I appreciate my friend and colleague, Mr. Paulsen, for organizing this. I think at the outset what should be noted most is, after the House finishes its regular business of the day, we hold these opportunities for people to take 60 minutes to talk about a particular issue; and, generally, these 60 minutes are divided up where one party has an hour and then the other party has an hour. And I just think that it's really important to note that here we are talking about an issue, and it's people from both parties getting together. Everywhere I go, I hear about people wanting folks in Congress to work together; and here we have an issue where we've got, as Mr. Paulsen said, 260 cosponsors. A majority of the House of Representatives is already on the legislation to repeal the medical device tax. So I applaud his leadership in working in a constructive way and building a coalition around this issue. And I'm going to take some time a little bit later to continue talking about this issue. But if I could just for the moment, I would like to recognize my colleague Mr. Peters from California for some comments on the medical device tax.”