Jim McDermott

What does it mean to the country if the government shuts down, if the ports shut down their ability to move goods for a week or a month?

We are trying to ramp up exports in this country.

The administration's work on the Panama FTA, like its work on the Korean FTA, is an example of how to do a trade agreement right.

While we are here to talk about Panama, the Republicans are silent on helping middle-class Americans.

Every week that the Republicans wait costs Americans jobs and jeopardizes our global competitiveness.

This Korean FTA is done. It has the support of business, labor, Democrats, Republicans, and the administration.

I expressed my disappointment that we were not holding a mock markup on the Korean Free Trade Agreement.

That is not an insult, that is a statement of fact.

I would like to hear from the Koch brothers.

I want to commend you on having brought to us today the architect of the Bush failure and a representative of the Koch Institute's ideas about the economy.

No one is saying we should forget about Colombia. Just the opposite.

We should be moving on the Korea FTA now.

I hoped this would be the mark-up for the Korean free trade agreement. That agreement is done.

It seems to me that the biggest problem that those of us who are supporting of the President's plan still have about what is going on, is that controlling costs is still not very well done.

Do you think it might be better just to collect your own data and never mind the RUC?

So it is not being set by CMS, but is being set by a private committee controlled by the American Medical Association; is that correct?

So there has never been any bending of the curve on the basis of the RUC; is that correct?

I lived in Kinshasa and was a regional medical officer with the State Department and saw the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

What I am really looking for is the best set of rules and regulations that we can have to make this law work.

I think you get a little more humble as you go along in this business and you realize that passing a bill isn't everything that it is cut out to be.

Can you imagine your father at age 90 going out looking for a health insurance plan with a voucher?

They propose cutting $1 billion from the National Institutes of Health. Now this cut is just plain stupid.

Republicans propose cutting $850 million from the CDC.

The Republicans want to cut $1.3 billion from community health centers.

This past Friday, the Republicans put out their plan to cut a hundred billion dollars from the Federal budget.