Jason Altmire

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. And the last thing for context, before I turn it over to Ms. Wasserman Schultz from Florida, you will remember, Mr. Murphy and I both being freshman, the excitement of that first week in Congress and the things that we did that first week when we were first sworn in at the beginning of 2007. Well, perhaps the most important thing that we did was return to pay-as-you-go budget scoring, which is very simple. It's the same thing that we all do in our own checkbooks at home and the same thing every business in America has to do. It says that you have to have money on one side of the ledger if you want to spend it on the other, pay-as-you-go. If you want to decrease revenue or you want to increase spending, you have to find a way to pay for it, an offset, you have to find an offset. And every spending bill and every authorization bill that we have passed out of this House this year, every single one of them has been compliant with pay-as-you-go. It has paid for itself; it's been budget neutral. So, the context of this debate with the President about his willingness to veto these bills and saying it's excessive spending, the American people should be aware of the fact that that's in the context of our returning to pay-as-you-go budget scoring. That's what led to the record surpluses of the 1990s that I referred to earlier. And the failure of this Congress to renew pay-as-you-go budget scoring in 2002 is what led to the record deficits that we're mired in today. So, when you hear about the vetoes of these spending bills, please keep in mind that we're talking about bills that are compliant with pay-as-you-go budget scoring, bills that are budget neutral and that have the appropriate offsets when there are spending increases. I would yield at this time to my good friend, Ms. Wasserman Schultz from Florida.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, thank you. We are here tonight with part of the 30 Something Working Group, and we are going to talk about what this House has been doing this week. We are here, it's late into the evening, and we have been working throughout the day on a variety of issues, and we are going to be at work tomorrow. I wanted to talk with my colleagues tonight. And we are going to have a full house. We are going to be joined by Mr. Murphy from Connecticut, Mr. Meek from Florida, Ms. Wasserman Schultz from Florida, and Mr. Ryan from Ohio. We are going to have a discussion about some of the things that this House has been doing. We took several significant votes this week, including the vote that was just discussed on Iraq. And we are going to discuss the policy in Iraq and the vote that we took today. I wanted to start by talking about the President's veto earlier in the week of the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. Now, the President has found his veto pen, something that on appropriations bills he had not used until this Congress. And I think it's instructive to begin this debate by reminding my colleagues, as if they needed reminding, that we are talking about an administration that took office after 4 consecutive years of record surpluses, 4 consecutive years of budget surpluses, that were forecast to continue as far as the eye can see. In fact, the 10-year projection for budget surplus beginning in 2001 was more than $5 trillion of surplus over that 10-year period. Well, what have we seen instead of that? We've seen seven consecutive budget deficits in the 7 years of this administration, deficits that are forecast to continue as far as the eye can see. And instead of that $5 trillion in surplus, we've seen more than $3 trillion in deficits in just 7 years. So, this administration that's now lecturing us on fiscal responsibility and vetoing our appropriations bills, criticizing us for spending, this administration saw more than $8 trillion flip from a projected $5 trillion surplus to $3 trillion in deficit and counting. So, that's the context of what we're talking about. So, we sent to the President the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, which includes programs like low-income energy assistance, home heating, the LIHEAP program. Now, I don't think there's anyone in this country that has not been affected by the price of oil. And home heating is something in the Northeast where I'm from in Pennsylvania, and in Connecticut where Mr. Murphy is from, and in Ohio where Mr. Ryan is from, the price of home heating has continued to skyrocket. And we're going to get into some of the numbers, but that's one of the things that's in this bill. Well, I don't think that's excessive spending, to help people who would otherwise have their heat turned off. We're talking about funding for community health centers. We're talking about funding for Head Start, a program for early childhood education. Is there anything more important in this country than early childhood education, making sure our children get off to a good start and begin their educational careers in a way that we're able to ensure that they get off and they're positioned to have the best start possible. Now, what about medical research, the National Institutes of Health? That's what we're talking about in this bill, funding for medical research. Is there anyone in the country that thinks we shouldn't be spending money to find cures and treatments for debilitating diseases across the board? That's what this bill is. That's what the Labor-HHS- Education bill funds, and the President vetoed that bill. And we're going to have a vote in this House to override that veto, and it's going to be a very close vote. We were two votes shy of having a veto override majority when the bill passed the House the first time. Two votes. That's what stands between us and overriding the President's veto. And I would remind my colleagues as well that we were able to override the President's veto just last week. This is not something that can't be done. We had a Water Resources Development Act that had not passed in 7 full years. It's supposed to be reauthorized every 2 years. Congress after Congress, in recent years, has been unable to pass that bill, so we passed it. And we faced a Presidential veto; the President vetoed it. We were able to override that veto overwhelmingly, 300-plus votes in the House; they got 79 in the other body. And what's in that bill? That's another bill that the President, and I outlined his record on fiscal responsibility and he wants to lecture us on spending, for infrastructure improvements in this country. Building levees in New Orleans, does that sound like pork? Building flood prevention infrastructure all across this country. There were projects in that bill in almost every congressional district in the country to prevent flooding, to help the waterways infrastructure in a way that we're investing for the first time in 7 years in flood prevention infrastructure. So we overrode that veto overwhelmingly. We do have the opportunity to do it again on the Labor- HHS-Education bill. And we're going to talk more about that. At this time, I want to yield to my colleague Mr. Murphy from Connecticut.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I wanted to mention one other issue that was in that bill. We talked about home heating assistance. We talked about health care for children, medical research. We talked about the Head Start program, but it's the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. And one of the programs that's in that bill that the President thought was excessive spending was additional 200,000 slots for job training for dislocated workers. And I can tell you, coming from western Pennsylvania where we know about dislocated workers and the need for job training and people to readapt when companies move and with the loss of manufacturing jobs, those are critically important programs that the President considers to be excessive spending. That's what we're talking about with this bill. That's what type of spending we're talking about.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, as we listen to the politicized rhetoric we are hearing from the other side today, let's keep one thing in mind; there is no group that will stand ahead of our Nation's veterans when it comes time for this Congress to make Federal funding decisions. This Congress, after years and years of underfunding the VA, this Congress added $13 billion of increased funding to the Veterans Affairs health care system. It's the largest increase in the 77-year history of the VA health care system. We are going to send that bill to the President, and if he chooses to veto it, we have the opportunity to override it. I can guarantee you that the Democrats in this House are going to vote to override it. Madam Speaker, you tell me who is responsible if the veterans don't receive their funding on time.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the chairman for including in this bill legislation I introduced to assist our brave men and women in uniform. My bill, H.R. 3827, the Active Duty Military Tax Relief Act, ensures that active duty military personnel will be able to treat combat pay as earned income when computing the earned income tax credit. My bill also allows Reservists called to active duty to make penalty- free withdrawals from their retirement plans. And servicemembers who receive differential pay from their civilian employer will be able to contribute those wages to their retirement plan. Finally, family members of those killed in the line of duty will be able to contribute up to $100,000 of the military death gratuity into tax-favored accounts, such as Roth IRAs and education savings accounts. I thank the chairman for working with me to ensure that all of these provisions from my bill have been included in full in this legislation which I strongly support.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield on that?

Mr. ALTMIRE. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut, the New York Giants fan.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I appreciate that. I want to talk about one of those hearings that we are talking about, the oversight hearings the President says is a waste of time. Well, I would ask the American people if they think that the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats has a hearing to investigate the Federal Government's efforts to protect our food supply chain, and the issue that I talked about where 1 percent of our food imports are inspected, I don't think that's a waste of our time. I don't think the gentleman thinks that's a waste of our time.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I wanted to do a couple of things. I wanted to talk about that one lonely toy inspector.

Mr. ALTMIRE. As the gentleman points out, it's a matter of setting priorities. It's not as though they were lowering the cost of government across the board. They picked and chose what they wanted to lower, and one of the issues they thought wasn't important and we didn't need to deal with was consumer safety. Now, I think we would all agree that consumer safety is incredibly important and especially what's happening with the Chinese imported toys, and to have dramatically less people working in that department this year than we did last year, than we did 5 and 6 and 7 years ago is outrageous. But I did want to put it in perspective that we are raising the debt incredibly, $3 trillion and counting in the last 7 years of this administration.

Mr. ALTMIRE. And this is something that's critical to understanding the tax policies that we're going to be considering in the remaining time that we have in the 110th Congress. The alternative minimum tax, as the gentleman is pointing out, is something that has to be addressed. We simply cannot afford to ignore this issue any longer. We've been in a position where we have been giving 1-year fixes year after year. For 1 year we hold harmless the folks that should qualify for the AMT as it's currently written with that flawed formula, and we push it off another year, and it gets more expensive to fix every time we do that. And what the gentleman from Connecticut is talking about is it was a flaw. In 1969, they created the alternative minimum tax to prevent people from escaping their tax obligations. They couldn't use deductions and loopholes and whatnot, and they didn't index it for inflation. So now we're 38 years later, and the income of 1969 that was considered rich at that point, due to 38 years of inflation, we have a different outlook on that. So we have a situation where the alternative minimum tax is spiraling out of control. And you gave numbers, 4 million people affected by it this year. If we do nothing, it is going to be 23 million next year. So we can't ignore the problem, and our friends on the other side of the aisle can pretend like that's not part of the equation and this is not something that we have to deal with or this isn't going to have a cost. And I know this is something you're going to address later in your remarks and we can discuss that, but to say, well, we should just do nothing about this or we should pretend like this isn't going to have a budget impact is just not consistent with the facts. So the alternative minimum tax is there. It's the reality. It's existed for 38 years. It's spiraling out of control, and we're very close to being in position where if we were to scrap the entire income tax system, that would cost less than to do away with the alternative minimum tax. We're only a few years away from meeting that threshold. So what do we do? Well, Chairman Rangel has put forward a plan that is not the only plan that's going to be discussed. It's not the only plan that's going to be offered, but it's the starting point for the discussion, and he has said that this needs to be a permanent fix. And I know in the other body they're having the same discussion, that it needs to be a permanent fix. We can't continue to do this year after year after year, and it just gets more expensive. So this is the starting point. We have to think about that when we talk about tax policy, that this is unmistakable that we have to deal with the AMT.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I have two little girls, 8 and 6, Natalie and Grace, and I have in my home some of those toys. I can tell you as a parent these are not toys that are fringe. You talk about Sponge Bob Square Pants and Dora and Thomas the Tank Engine, those are mainstream toys. Those are in families and houses all across this country. And to think that the Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn't have the resources to adequately monitor these toys coming in with exaggerated levels of lead, dangerous levels of lead from the Chinese, as a parent it makes me very angry, but as an American it makes me angry because I know all across the country there's kids right now that are playing with those very toys.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I want to put this in perspective. I would like to bring this down to the level of the average family and what they are consuming when we are talking about some of these recalls with regard to food safety, and so people can understand at home what we are talking about. I have a list in front of me, and I won't read through it all, because it's an incredibly long list, unfortunately, the recalls that have taken place just this year. Just this year. We are at the end of October, the last day of October, today. But a couple of the big ones that stand out, I am sure everybody remembers back in February the peanut butter recall due to salmonella contamination, huge issue, people were sickened all across the country. The level of that recall, 326 million pounds of peanut butter across the country, and that, primarily, would affect children, children eating their peanut butter. We had a 55,000 cantaloupe recall. Now, that came from Costa Rica, because of salmonella, just to show you how across the board this is. We had 9.5 million bottles of Listerine that were recalled due to a microbial contamination, and that was in April. Throughout this list, month after month, there are multiple recalls involving millions of pounds of ground beef for a variety of illnesses that it caused, so ground beef, and from a number of different countries that we are talking about importing. We have food recalls involving apple juice, 113,000 units of apple juice were recalled in August. Then, lastly, everything up through pot pies, we just had this month, they were recalling pot pies due to salmonella contamination. So when we talk about 1 percent of the food imports into this country are inspected, it affects our entire food supply. Yes, this is a health issue, but this is also a national security issue. That's why we are having some of these hearings that we are talking about. And I'm very grateful that we have been joined by the distinguished colleague of ours from Florida, Miami, Mr. Kendrick Meek; and I would, at this time, yield to him.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Ohio. I have people all the time in my district, Mr. Speaker, that come up to me and talk about that passport issue that Mr. Ryan mentioned. We had hundreds and hundreds of travelers over the summer months that needed the help through our office, and I'm sure you had the same experience because of that 500,000-case backlog at the State Department. They were unable to deal with it. They put forward this regulation. They didn't have the resources to deal with it, very similar to what we're talking about with the Product Safety Commission. These are the types of things that we are holding hearings on. We're trying to get to the bottom of it. And when the President talks about, well, we're wasting our time by holding our hearings, I'm not sure what his inference is. I'm not sure what he would have us be doing, because it's not as though we haven't been doing our work here in this Chamber, because tomorrow, we begin the 11th month of the year, and through the first 10 months, as the gentleman knows, this Congress, the 110th Congress, compared to any other Congress in the history of the country, the 109 that came before us, through this date and time, this Congress has met more often and taken more votes than any Congress in the history of the country, bar none. So for the President to insinuate that we're holding these hearings and doing nothing else, again, it's inconsistent with the facts.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Just to clarify, as the gentleman from Ohio understands, this was not the reduction that you see there in that chart. This was not a governmentwide reduction in costs where we were tightening our belts and doing the right thing and being fiscally responsible and we happen to lower the costs in the consumer safety section by reducing some payroll over there. This was the biggest spending administration and the biggest spending Congress in the history of the country.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I know the gentleman didn't have the number in front of him when he was talking about it, the number of toys just from China that were recalled last year. This is this year, the number of toys that we imported, this is the number of toys that were recalled, is 20 million, 20 million toys just from China that were recalled this year, and we have one employee at the Consumer Product Safety Commission that's reviewing those toys. But we may have people out there that are watching us tonight that say, well, I don't have kids, I don't have toys. It doesn't affect me. Let me tell you, it does affect you. Let's talk about food safety and let's talk about what's happening right now with regard to that. Just with China, recalls this past year ranged from bag spinach and peanut butter to contaminated wheat flour, all from China. That has brought fear to the Nation's kitchen tables. We have tainted food coming in from China as well. I am not going to test my friends from Ohio and Connecticut, but I will tell you up front, less than 1 percent of our food imports are inspected. That is a shocking number. That surprised me.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I know we're very short on time; so we'll turn it over to Mr. Murphy shortly to close out. But you talked about combining these appropriations bills and the criticism that we received from the other side. I wanted to remind my colleagues of the last time that this happened. It was very recently. We shouldn't need to remind them. It was just in February. And the reason we had to combine nine appropriations bills from last year in this session of Congress was because, after the outcome of the elections in 2006, the Republican Congress said, I'm done, I'm going home. I don't care about these nine appropriations bills. We'll leave it for the next group to fix. And that is what we had to deal with when we came in, nine appropriations bills that were not completed from the previous fiscal year. We were in the current fiscal year doing last year's work. So I couldn't believe what I was hearing today on the floor when we were being criticized for combining three appropriations bills in the current fiscal year when they left us with nine bills incomplete that we had to deal with.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues on the other side for their weeks of expressing to us what their concerns were about the SCHIP bills that we've passed. And I'm happy to say that we've heard those concerns, and in this bill that we're voting on today we address those concerns. They were concerned, as am I, about coverage for illegal immigrants. And this bill expressly prohibits coverage of illegal immigrants. They were concerned about the coverage of adults, including adults who are currently covered in the SCHIP program. This bill eliminates coverage for those adults and all childless adults. And they were concerned about income levels. They wanted to keep this program for low-income children, and this bill today caps at 300 percent of poverty the qualification level for families to get into the SCHIP program. So there should be no reason for any of my colleagues on the other side to vote against this bill. Let's vote to ensure 10 million children receive the health care that they deserve.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to follow up on a couple of points that the gentleman from Ohio mentioned, one of which was this idea that, well, these kids who don't have insurance can just show up at the emergency room. What I hear people who are of that mindset say is this SCHIP program is too expensive, there's not enough money to cover these kids and, therefore, I don't want to pay for them; somebody else can worry about that, send them to the emergency room. But here's the problem with that way of thinking. We do pay for it when they show up at the emergency room. They show up there, they get covered, and, as the gentleman indicated, an earache that could have been knocked out with antibiotics turns into something more serious, a cold turns into pneumonia. Other situations that could be easily treatable, they instead turn into bigger health problems. We all pay for that because, in this country, when a hospital has uncompensated care or debt based on the fact that people don't have insurance but still show up for treatment, we are the ones that pay for that. The reason that when you go to a hospital an aspirin will cost $15 is because of the cost shift that takes place when somebody, one of these children without health insurance shows up at the hospital, usually in the least cost effective way possible in the emergency room. So that is what happens when the President or someone else says, Well, let's just send them to the emergency room and everything will be fine. We are paying for that. That is why health insurance premiums go up, that is why costs are skyrocketing, and that is the cost shift that takes place. On another point, I wanted to mention, and we are talking about our successes, some of the things that have happened in this Congress, I wanted to relay a story that took place over the weekend. I was holding a town hall meeting in my district and we were taking questions and someone asks the question, Well, when are you guys going to do something about the cost of college? I have got a kid in college. When are you going to lower the cost of higher education? I said, That is a great question and I want to apologize to you because you should be aware of the fact that we have done something about that. This is not something that is on the drawing board or just passed the House or is awaiting signature. This has been signed and enacted, $20 billion of relief for parents and students for higher education. The largest expansion of higher education funding since the GI bill in 1944 passed this House, passed the Senate, and has been signed into law by the President. Maybe we haven't done as good a job as we should be doing in getting the message out. This is a major legislative victory for this Congress and for this country. We cut in half the interest rate on student loans, from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, which, by itself, if we did nothing else, would save the average student borrower in this country $4,400 by itself. But that is not all we did. We increased Pell Grant funding to $5,400, the largest increase and the highest amount available in history, in the history of the Pell Grant program. We increased funding for Perkins loans. We increased the availability and the types of students and the types of schools that can qualify for Perkins loans. Just as important, we capped at 15 percent of discretionary income the amount that the student borrower will be required to pay in paying back their loans. So they will not be forced into debt over their heads, and they will be able to have a more manageable debt burden when they graduate and when they start in the workforce and their income is not that high. These are good achievements. That was all in that bill. So what I said to the person who asked this question was, this was something you took the time to show up at the town meeting to ask this question. This was the number one issue of concern to you, and that is why you asked me this question. And we did something about it. This Congress has helped you on the issue that is of the greatest concern to you. It is going to help millions of Americans, parents and students around this country, afford higher education, afford the cost of college. We have had tremendous legislative success. As you have talked about, more days in session, more rollcall votes, more legislation passed, than any Congress in recent history, maybe in the history of the country to this date. So we have legislative success. I wanted to not let the time go by without talking about that College Cost Reduction Act, because that is going to affect people's lives. So I yield back now to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Meek.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I wanted to talk a little bit about what the President said today as well, and he focused his remarks in large part on the SCHIP vote that we're going to take tomorrow in this House. This, as we speak, is the day before we're going to take a vote on whether or not to override the veto that the President put forward on a plan that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from both Houses. Sixty- seven Members of the United States Senate and 265 Members of the House voted for the SCHIP bill, bipartisan. And one of the things the President put forward today and has said in the past as well, we need to compromise; we need to come together. Well, I would say to the President, Mr. Speaker, that we have, in fact, made substantial compromise. We have come together as Republicans and Democrats. We put forward a bill in the House. The Senate put forward a bill. We conferenced a bill. We came to an agreement that passed with overwhelming support among both parties. We sent it to the White House, and the President, as he certainly is able to do under the Constitution and is his right to do so, he vetoed the bill, and we're going to have a vote tomorrow on whether or not to override the veto. But don't pretend that this was not a compromise piece of legislation that took weeks and months to hammer out the details and to work together with Republicans and Democrats alike, voting to support this piece of legislation that enjoys 70 to 80 percent approval in the country according to recent polls. I wanted to talk a little bit about what the President said were his problems with the SCHIP bill, and one of the things that he continues to throw out there as well: this is socialized medicine; this is a big Federal Government program that's a movement towards Big Government health care. And that just could not be further from the truth. Let's take a look at what the SCHIP program is. This is a capped block grant. The money is capped from the Federal level. It's sent to the States and the States carry out the program. It's a State- administered program, and almost every State in the country contracts out their SCHIP program in the private health insurance market, in the private market. So this could not be further from the big Federal Government takeover of socialized medicine scheme. It's administered in the private market. We could spend our entire hour here tonight listening to groups that have endorsed this bill, but for the purposes of refuting what the President says, I would point to the health insurance industry in this country, which is certainly never going to support anything that's remotely close or a movement towards federalized health care, socialized medicine. They support this legislation, as does, as Speaker Pelosi often says, everyone alphabetically from the AARP to the YWCA. This has overwhelming support around the country, overwhelming support among Republicans and overwhelming support among Democrats. So, again, the President's welcome to veto this bill. He's able to do so, and he exercised that right, but let's be truthful about what's really in this piece of legislation. He talks about how it affects families making up to $83,000. Well, what are the facts behind that claim? Where did that number come from? That comes from the fact, as I said, this is administered by the States, and I would welcome my friend from Ohio, Mr. Ryan, as well, who has taken a break from watching the Cleveland Indians tonight. We have $83,000 as 400 percent of poverty. There was one State in the country, New York State, applied for a waiver. Four hundred percent of poverty they wanted to cover. That waiver was denied. It did not take effect. No other State in the country does it.

Mr. ALTMIRE. It is expressly prohibited under the bill.

Mr. ALTMIRE. It was great to hear from one of the true giants of this House, the distinguished whip from South Carolina, Mr. Clyburn. Thank you for joining us tonight. I was talking about this $83,000 income level that the President continues to throw out there, and it's factually inaccurate. It's just completely false. As I was saying, the history of it is New York State, one State in this country, applied for a waiver, attempting to reach the 400 percent of poverty level. That waiver was denied, never took effect. Those families were not covered, but the President uses that as his example of what could happen if we put this legislation forward. Well, the reality is, as under current law, it doesn't change in our bill; it would have to be approved. Any change in income up to that level would have to be approved by the administration. So if the President did not want to see any State move forward, he would say that that is denied, as it was denied when New York State tried to put that forward. So to say that the $83,000 figure is the reason for his veto is just factually inaccurate, at least using it as an example. Importantly, the bill that we passed limits the Federal matching percentage and gives States a strong disincentive for going above 300 percent of poverty which would be about $62,000. So the States have a strong incentive to not even attempt to go above 300 percent of poverty; and as I said, it's inaccurate for the President to say that that's the reason for his veto. So I'll continue a little bit later on that, but we're joined by Mr. Murphy from Connecticut, and I mentioned earlier that Mr. Ryan from Ohio has been watching the baseball playoffs. Well, unfortunately, Mr. Murphy from Connecticut is on the other end of that.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Let me add one quote to build on that, Mr. Ryan. This is from one of our Republican colleagues who seems to get this. David Hobson, a Republican, pretty reasonable.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I just have one more myth that I wanted to throw out there that none of us touched on, before our time runs out, and that's this idea of this bill promoting adults being in the SCHIP program. And the President used that as one of his examples. He talked about it today and has talked about it in the past. Well, what are the facts of adults being in the SCHIP program? It is true that under the current SCHIP program, the plan that is current law and has been for the past 10 years, some States have made the determination to cover the parents of children, thinking that that will entice them to take their entire family to the doctor. And that's debatable. It's something that's certainly under a policy discussion we could have that debate. But what does our bill do about that? Our bill's a reauthorization of the program. And the President says we're going to encourage adults to get into the program. Well, you know what our bill does? Our bill phases out adults being eligible for the program over a 2-year period. And after that 2-year period, the only adults that would be allowed into the SCHIP program are pregnant women, if it's determined by the State, again, it's a State option that they should be covered, and there's no guarantee that any State in the country would do that. But we phase out the current part of the SCHIP bill that allows adults into the program. So for the President of the United States to stand up before a camera and say, I'm going to veto this bill because it allows adults to get coverage under SCHIP, is again just factually inaccurate. So with that, if Mr. Murphy is ready. I will yield some time to him.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Talking about the President, he said, ``I don't know who is advising him up there, but the President is really out of touch. It is too little, too late for him to be a fiscal conservative. He should have vetoed the farm bill. Now, he is against the SCHIP bill, and he wants $190 billion more for the war.'' So there are Republicans who get this. The President and a lot of these so-called fiscally conservative Republicans are Johnny-come- latelies on this issue. All of a sudden, after ballooning deficits and skyrocketing spending, now, when it comes to kids' health they are going to all of a sudden be fiscal conservatives. So it is nice; we are talking about this year's Democrats, but there are some Republicans who get that as well.