Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), whose two staff people, Karen Nelson and Tim Westmoreland, did particularly outstanding work. He was on the conference committee with the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I want to comment briefly on the Medicare provisions in the bill. One or more of my colleagues has expressed concern about the inclusion of some provisions in this legislation that are important. I want to make sure my colleagues understand these measures do not in any way adversely affect Medicare beneficiaries. Several of us, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), none of us would have signed off on legislation that would have done anything but that. One of these provisions is critically important for Medicare beneficiaries. Under current law, beneficiaries who choose to enroll in a managed care plan become locked into that plan. They must wait until the annual open enrollment program to switch plans or go into Medicare fee for service. This bill removes that restriction, delays it for 3 years. We want to continue to delay it. The best we could do in the compromise was a 3- year delay rather than a permanent removal, so that Medicare beneficiaries can leave managed care, are not locked into that plan, can leave any time during the year and not just in the annual open enrollment period. We also include in the language in the conference report provisions to protect in terms of time, when the Medicare period was moved from July to September. CMS has agreed we have language in the conference report to make sure that is enough time for people to be able to change. So those provisions on Medicare are solid, they are bipartisanly agreed to. Beneficiaries will benefit, not at all be hurt, but in fact benefit by that language.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the staffs of all of the Members that were involved for their excellent work on this very complicated bill. All of us are clearly happy with the legislation and disappointed with the legislation. I would like to highlight again as we close in the last couple of minutes a couple of highlights of that. I am particularly happy with the antibiotic resistance language in this bill. It is really the first time Congress, and I give credit to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and really everybody involved, it is the first time Congress has addressed this issue as seriously as we have on this. It is a serious problem, with drugs as common as penicillin, a drug that we all know, now is not as effective an antibiotic as it was 20 years ago. We are seeing a whole host of antibiotics not as effective as they were. This bill is the first step. What we have left undone is legislation that we will continue to come to this committee on and hope to work with the gentleman from Louisiana on where half the antibiotics in this country are used for nonmedicinal, nontherapeutic purposes in animals, not to cure sick animals, but to help animals grow faster and to help animals actually not get disease because of the way we pack these animals together in pens that are too small. We are going to need to make some changes there, and I hope this Congress will seriously take that issue up. I think on food safety, while we have done a reasonably good job on this bill, I hope that we can look more seriously at country-of-origin labeling and some other issues. I am pleased with post-market surveillance of prescription drugs, as we have pushed through, with PDUFA in speeding up, accelerating the process of approval of prescription drugs, a very good thing to get them on the market more quickly so that consumers can benefit from them, patients can benefit from them. We also have done something in this bill we had not done before, and that is fund post-market surveillance so that when those drugs get on the market more quickly than they have in the past, if there are problems, the FDA is looking much more closely as these drugs are used in a huge part of the population rather than just clinical trials so that we, in fact, can detect much more quickly than before if there is damage done to people with the vast increase in the use of these drugs, with direct consumer advertising and all that. This legislation also has good provisions with something called DDMAC, which is Division of Drug Market Advertising and Communications at FDA. It is a review of marketing materials. As the drug companies, more and more, are spending huge numbers of dollars marketing their drugs, I think that will be a particularly positive direction. I am disappointed, and I hope that we can move in a positive way on the pediatric rule so that as we passed legislation last year on the pediatric exclusivity, to give the drug companies 6 months more patent time, if you will, an extension of their patent so that they would test their drugs on children, test these prescription drugs on children that, in fact, we will codify the pediatric rule at some point so that drug testing will be done immediately on children as it is being done on adults during the clinical trials. So those are some things I hope we can look for. We have done a good job on this bill with PDUFA; we have done a good job on this bill overall with bioterrorism; we have done a good job with food safety and antibiotic resistance. There is a lot more to do on antibiotic resistance; there is a lot more to do with food safety; there is a lot more to do with preserving safety and efficacy of prescription drugs on the market as we get them on the market more quickly. So I would close by expressing my gratitude to the conference committee and by imploring the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), so that we can move forward on some of these other issues during the next few months. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Houston, Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), a registered nurse and a very active advocate for health care.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this legislation is not just to get people off of welfare, but to reduce poverty in this country and to get people to work. Mr. Speaker, getting a job also means keeping a job. When we fall short, as this legislation does, as our hearings indicated, as our discussions indicated, as our debate indicates, when we fall short on helping Americans keep jobs, we have missed the point of this legislation. We have fallen far short on education. The Democratic plan allows education to be counted towards the work requirement. We have fallen far short on child care funding. The Democratic plan provides several billion dollars for child care. We have fallen far short on restoring benefits for legal immigrants. All of those issues will help people not just get jobs, but keep jobs. At the same time, the other side of the aisle talks about flexibility and giving States flexibility; yet from abstinence education to a whole host of other issues, the Republican bill falls far short on giving States the real flexibility they need to get people not just off the welfare rolls, but to make sure people have good jobs, meaningful work, good training, child care, health care, all of the things that are needed. Mr. Speaker, especially on health care issues, this Congress has not taken the right approach. We should extend the State medical assistance program more than just 1 year. It should be at least 5 years, as this reauthorization does; or it should be permanent if we really do care about making sure that people can get off welfare and get to work and have meaningful jobs. In the end, as Republicans have, on this legislation, on prescription drugs, on issue after issue after issue, Republicans have made a choice. They have chosen tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country rather than providing services to help people keep those jobs, get educated, have the kind of health care benefits they need. They have chosen tax cuts for the richest Americans, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars overwhelmingly for the richest 1, 2 and 3 percent of the people in the country instead of a decent prescription drug benefit. They have chosen tax cuts for the wealthiest people instead of funding adequately the education bill that this Congress passed. Mr. Speaker, when we think about flexibility, when we think about alleviating poverty and about providing jobs so people can keep those jobs, think about the plan the Democrats have moved towards with flexibility, with support for education, with support for child care funding, and especially with support for medical care. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. The President and House Republicans' message on welfare reform has been loud and clear. States need greater flexibility, but when it comes to abstinence education, they are unwilling to afford that same flexibility. If States want the Federal match, they must do the Federal Government's bidding and use an abstinence-only curriculum. In other words, Mr. Speaker, schools cannot use these dollars to teach kids about AIDS, about STDs, or about birth control. The substitute bill we are offering today does not affect the ability of States to use these grants for abstinence-only education if they choose to, if that is the direction they want to take. Our bill gives State and local systems the flexibility, a word that Republicans use on this floor regularly, the flexibility to provide additional information to students that can help protect them against STDs and teen pregnancy. I would urge my colleagues to remember that more than 80 percent of parents support comprehensive sex education. Why is the Federal Government not listening? Regarding the transitional Medicaid program, we support the extension of transitional medical assistance which helps working families keep health insurance as they transition from welfare to work. We should make this commonsense program permanent, consistent with the welfare bill. In the spirit of bipartisanship, we agreed to a 1-year extension in committee to ensure that this provision even made it into the TANF bill. I commend the chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), who supported this measure despite the fact that House Republican leadership in the House Committee on the Budget included no money for Medicaid, and I appreciate the chairman's comments today that he would continue year after year to authorize this. However, Republican leadership has decided to pay for transitional medical assistance by cutting other parts of Medicaid. The bill cuts payments to State Medicaid programs. Those dollars are critical. They fund activities like nursing home outreach and oversight and anti-fraud activities. States cannot afford to lose them. Republican leadership found more than $1.5 trillion in the treasury to give tax cuts to the richest people in this country, but they cannot come up with $355 million to help welfare families reenter and stay in the workplace. Where, Mr. Speaker, are our priorities?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. McCarthy), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. (Ms. McCARTHY of Missouri asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor). (Mr. PASTOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. There is a frustration in this House of Representatives as we have seen from this line of speakers, probably 10 people on the Democratic side, who care enough to show up on the House floor and talk about health care issues. There is a frustration that we have not passed a Patients' Bill of Rights. Granted the House passed it, but the fact is there is no Patients' Bill of Rights signed into law. There is a frustration that this House has not taken up the Medicare buy-in bill, a voluntary program, revenue neutral, that would allow 55- to 64-year- olds who have lost their health insurance through no fault of their own to go into the Medicare program. There is a frustration in this House that we have done nothing except talk about a prescription drug benefit, nothing about a prescription drug benefit inside Medicare, nothing about prescription drug prices as the drug companies are the most profitable industry in America, enjoy the lowest tax rate in America, where American taxpayers pay half of the cost of research and development and the drug companies turn around and reward Americans by charging us more than people anywhere else on Earth. There is a frustration in this House that we have not moved on children's health issues, that we simply have failed to reduce the number of children who lack health insurance. But there is a bigger frustration from our constituents, a frustration embodied in the fact that every couple of months 50 people join me on a bus from my district from northeast Ohio to go to Canada to buy drugs at one-half or one-third or one-fourth the cost of prescription drugs in local drugstores because the drug companies simply charge Americans, not the pharmacies, but the drug companies simply charge Americans more than anywhere else. There is a bigger frustration from our constituents who have to cut their prescriptions, that have to cut the drugs that they are taking in half or take them every other day or do some other creative kind of ingestion of their drugs because it is simply that they are prescription drugs, simply because they want their prescription to last longer. There is a frustration among our constituents who watch their children get ear infections and just wait and wait and wait because they do not have health care coverage, then they take them to the emergency room and they might lose their hearing. There is a frustration among our constituents who have to choose to take their drugs instead of providing enough food or turning their heat up warm enough in the winter. There is that frustration aimed at this Congress because we simply are not doing anything on the major issues. We are not taking care of children without health insurance, we are not taking care of prescription drug coverage for seniors, we are not taking care of people who are 55 or 58 or 60 years old whose factories closed, whether they are steelworkers or autoworkers or small business people or shop owners, who simply cannot afford their prescriptions and cannot afford their health care. That is the frustration. This Congress passes a resolution, we will all say yes when you call this vote and we will all support it, but the fact is this Congress again on Tuesday afternoon comes in, people fly in from all over the country and we debate and vote on resolutions like this but we do not do anything on prescription drug coverage, we do not do anything on health insurance, we do not do anything on children's health, we do not do anything on any of these issues that matter to the American people. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who understands, unlike the Republican leadership, that we must do something about prescription drug prices.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I share the view of the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) that health insurance is important, that education and outreach are also important. But if I poll people in my district who are uninsured, I am pretty sure they would say it is actually Members of Congress who need education. The uninsured in my district know that going without health insurance is a bad idea. Most of them did not choose that; it is either not available or it is too expensive. Small business knows that sponsoring health insurance for their employees is a good idea. They still cannot afford it. The resolution of the gentlewoman from New Mexico says that public awareness and education about the importance of health insurance coverage is of the utmost importance. Our utmost priority should be to make sure Americans actually have access to health coverage. Instead, we sit idle in this body as existing health coverage erodes in the United States. State Medicaid programs throughout the country are in the red. Several States seriously are considering scaling back Medicaid programs. Congress has looked at legislation to provide temporary assistance to States so they can maintain their Medicaid programs. Congress has looked at proposals to help unemployed workers weather the economic downturn without losing their health coverage. Congress has looked at plans to prevent a dip in funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program that will leave 300,000 children without coverage. But have we taken action on any of these fronts? No. It is a math question: If you drain the budget surplus into tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country and tax cuts for Enron and IBM and General Motors, the dollars simply are not there to help sustain existing health coverage, much less expand access. So we pass resolutions and do nothing because we do not have the money to do it. Promoting outreach to inform people about Medicare and the Children's Health Insurance Program, but looking the other way as Medicaid and SCHIP programs throughout this country are put on the chopping block, rings a bit hollow under these circumstances. And by the way, Medicaid and SCHIP insure 1 out of 5 children in this country. If we care about health insurance, we should care less about resolutions like this but more about these programs. When we consider that this Congress has done nothing, nothing to expand or even to preserve access to health insurance, nothing unless you count these empty resolutions, these resolutions say this to the public: Congress cares deeply about your situation. We really do. We are not going to lift a finger to help you, but drop us a line and let us know how things turn out, because we are really interested. The House Republican prescription drug and Medicare privatization plan sends the same message. It says to seniors: We really do care. We really do. But, unfortunately, it is not you whom we care about. We are offering up a prescription drug plan, Republicans tell us, that will not protect you from high drug cost; the truth is it is not even workable, because we prioritized tax cuts for the richest Americans and the largest corporations ahead of you and now we cannot afford to add even a decent drug benefit to Medicare. That is why we saw the histrionics last week from Republican leaders proposing some phony kind of prescription drug benefit. I am sure many of the same Members of Congress who recently eliminated another $374 billion from the Federal budget by making permanent the tax cuts that go overwhelmingly to the richest Americans, dollars that could have been used to find a real solution to prescription drug needs, dollars that could have been used to expand or at least preserve access to health insurance, I am sure many of those same Members who voted to make the tax cut permanent, who made a tax cut permanent so we cannot afford prescription drug coverage, we cannot afford access for children to health care, those same Members that voted to make that tax cut permanent will also vote today to promote National Importance of Health Care Month. They might send out a news release, they might go home and brag about how they are interested in expanding health care to children and taking care of a prescription drug benefit. But on behalf of the millions of uninsured, the millions of underinsured, the millions who do not have prescription drug benefits, and the millions of Americans that the House Republican leadership leaves in the dust when you voted for tax cuts, I would like to say, thanks for nothing. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, when large employers, unions, and progressive Members of Congress and governors and senior groups and consumer advocates join forces on the same issue, Congress listens. What is the issue? Prescription drugs and prescription drug prices. What is the remedy? Legislation pending in the Senate and House that would close loopholes in the Waxman-Hatch bill Congress passed in 1984. Overall, the law, which was intended to help consumers gain access to blockbuster drugs and to, eventually, lower-cost generics, has worked well. Waxman-Hatch ensured brand name manufacturers almost 2 decades of patent protection, promoting important innovation and ensuring huge profits for the prescription drug industry. Between 1983 and 1995, drug companies increased their R&D investment, in large part because of Waxman-Hatch, from 14 percent to 19 percent of sales. They earned quite a healthy profit on that investment. U.S. pharmaceutical sales rose 200 percent, from $17 billion to $57 billion. The act streamlined the generic drug approval process to help bring lower-cost prescription drugs to the market. Last year, generic drugs accounted for 42 percent of all prescriptions dispensed. But the big drug companies have been greedy; smart, but greedy. The industry has perfected the practice of attaching questionable patents to their drugs for the purpose of preventing generic drugs' entry into the market. As a brand drug nears the end of its 20-year patent life, the company will file what they deem a ``new and improved patent'' on the same drug, to keep out the generic drug and to keep out competition. A patent, for example, was filed on a pill that could be divided into three parts instead of in half, instead of in two parts. This new and improved patent pill, patented pill, that does not affect the way the pill metabolizes in the body, which is what matters, keeps the generic drug that can be divided in half off of the market. While the generic company fights this outrageous patent in court, the brand name company, the big drug company, retains its market exclusivity at the cost of tens of millions, sometimes even billions of dollars, to consumers. The drug industry manipulates the law with relative ease. I will share another example. Neurontin is a prescription drug for seizures. Its two main patents, one on the drug's ingredients and one on the use of the drug, expired in 1994 and in 2000. Right before the second patent expired, the company listed two new patents, one of which was on an unapproved FDA use to treat Parkinson's disease. The industry did not ask the FDA to approve the drug for use in Parkinson's patients. The industry did not do any research to assert whether the drug actually is effective in Parkinson's patients. But the drug company, the generic drug company, the competitor that forces prices down, that would compete with the name brand company, the generic drug company still had to go to court to argue that its generic drug is not intended for use for Parkinson's patients. When the generic and the brand name company go to court, the FDA is automatically required, must be required to withhold approval of the generic for 30 months, 2\1/2\ years. After those 30 months, the industry filed a new patent, forcing the generic industry to go back to court, starting the 30-month clock over. The two delays in the case of Neurontin, the two delays, equalling 5 years, delayed generic access to the market, delayed consumers getting the less expensive drug, delayed the marketplace competition, and it cost consumers $1.5 million every day because of the big drug companies' greed. Industry profits continue to soar. Now a group of large corporations, labor unions, governors from both sides of the aisle, and consumer groups want to stop the patent abuses. Unfortunately, Republican leadership does not. All of us know that loopholes in the law are contributing to spiraling prescription drug costs and that this level of spending is unattainable. The gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) and I have introduced legislation, H.R. 1862, to close the loopholes and to release the billions in consumer savings that are being stifled by the big name drug companies and by Republican leadership. General Motors supports our legislation, and so do the United Auto Workers. Verizon and the other Baby Bells support our legislation, and so do the Communication Workers of America. The AARP supports it, the AFL-CIO supports it, and Governor Deane from Vermont, a Democrat, Governor Foster from Louisiana, a Republican, supports it. The only people who do not are the Republican leadership in the House. Congress should pass this legislation and the President should sign it this year. Tens of billions of dollars, consumer dollars, are at stake.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, antibiotic drugs have revolutionized human and veterinary medicines. Many diseases and infections, tuberculosis, pneumonia, typhoid, cholera, which were once difficult to treat, and often lethal, have been made readily curable by antibiotic drugs. But unfortunately, when bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, resistant strains emerge, posing a renewed threat to human health. This phenomenon makes it more difficult and vastly more expensive to treat some infections. We all know that the inappropriate use of antibiotics in human medicine has contributed to this problem. And mounting scientific evidence also shows that the routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy farm animals, nontherapeutic use, promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can then be communicated to people. In recent years, the list of simple bacterial infections that are strongly resistant to several classes of antibiotics has grown dramatically. Each day that we fail to act, antibiotic resistance grows, the long-term usefulness of our antibiotics are undermined. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support H.R. 1771 and H.R. 3804 to address the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in human and animal medicine.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor today to talk about prescription drugs, how little this Congress is doing to provide a prescription drug benefit and how this body is doing even less to control the cost of prescription drugs, but I feel compelled to comment on the previous speaker's comments. It is always nice to put a nice-looking family's picture in front of TV viewers and in front of this Congress and this Chamber and in front of the gallery to show how we care about people in this country, but the picture that he should have put in front of the voters, in front of the viewer, in front of this body is a picture of Ken Lay of Enron which got literally hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks as a result of the Bush administration's fervor for cutting taxes overwhelmingly for the rich and his fervor for protecting every corporate interest in the country and his fervor for giving tax giveaways, tax breaks to all of the biggest corporations in the country. Six months ago this Congress gave $5 billion to the airlines in tax breaks, and in this case, in airlines, simply subsidies and in terms of just dollars from the Federal Treasury, but did nothing for laid-off workers. Similarly, the Bush tax program that my friend from Illinois just mentioned as he put the picture of a nice working-class family, that tax benefit goes overwhelmingly to the richest people in this country. Last year 100 million people, he said, in America benefited from the tax cut. That may be true. People got a check for $300, but 43 percent of all the tax benefits from the Bush tax cut goes to the 1 percent richest people in this country. Eighty percent of the benefits go to the 10 percent wealthiest people in this country. What does that say? It says that Congress last year and last week, as it did it again, made a choice. They made a choice. Do we give tax cuts to Ken Lay and Enron and United Airlines and the biggest corporations and the richest individuals in this country, or do we provide a prescription drug benefit to 15 million senior citizens who have no drug coverage? We made a choice. The Republicans in this body last week and last year made a choice. Do we cut taxes on the richest people in the country, on the largest corporations in the country and a few dollars from the rest of us, or do we pass legislation that provides money for education? On issue after issue after issue, this Congress made the choice. It sides with corporate interests, on the chemical company on arsenic legislation. It sides with the insurance companies on privatizing Medicare. It sides with Wall Street in privatizing Social Security. It sides with the oil industry in writing environmental policy. It sides with Enron when writing energy policy. That is a choice. The choice is do we do what is right for the great majority of Americans or do we take the side of the wealthiest or the biggest corporations and the wealthiest individuals? That picture, notwithstanding that my friend from Illinois put up, the fact is that that family may have gotten a little bit of money back in tax cuts, but that family will not be eligible for a prescription drug benefit because Congress, as they get older, because Congress will not do anything about prescription drugs because the money is not there. I repeat, Congress made the choice last week and made the choice last year, do my colleagues want a prescription drug benefit for the elderly or do they want to give tax cuts to the richest people in the country and the largest corporations in the country? Do they want to fully fund the education programs in this country that Congress says it wants to fund or do they want to give those tax breaks again to the wealthiest people? Do they fund our Medicare system which cuts payments for home healthcare, which cuts doctors' fees too much, which cuts hospitals, especially city hospitals in intercity and rural hospitals, or do they want to fund them properly or do they want to give away tax breaks to the richest citizens? That is the choice we make here every day. That is the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Do we move forward and provide prescription drug benefits, provide for education, provide for Head Start, provide for food safety inspections, provide for strong environmental laws, or do we do the bidding of corporate America on issue after issue after issue? Give them the big tax breaks, weaken environmental laws, weaken food safety laws, weaken laws that protect the American public? That is the choice we make. That is the choice that Congress made that was wrong in the last year and that the President and the administration has made. That is wrong. That is why we need to correct it.