Phil Gingrey

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman from Iowa will yield just for a second on the gentlelady's point.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, on Friday, January 29, Russia's fifth-generation fighter jet, with stealth capabilities, successfully completed its first test flight. This is an ominous development indeed, as it comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision to terminate production of our own fifth- generation air superiority fighter, the F-22A Raptor. The administration's decision to end the F-22 program at 187 aircraft was clearly not driven by military requirements, as a longstanding Air Force requirement for the F-22, developed to meet the national military strategy, is 381. While President Obama and Secretary Gates were expending great capital in shorting the Air Force by nearly 200 F-22s, it should be clear to all of us what the Russians have been doing. Air superiority is not something we should take for granted, Madam Speaker, for owning the skies is what enables us to own the battlefield. The President's shortsighted decision on the F-22 ignores the possibility that at some point in the future, we could find ourselves in conflict with a conventional military power that could challenge our air superiority, a possibility I don't think any of us would like to imagine.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, President Obama submitted his fiscal year 2011 budget to Congress with the claim that he was planning on restoring fiscal discipline to Washington. However, once you look beyond the rhetoric, it's clear that the budget the President delivered to Congress does not deliver on its promises. Mr. Speaker, the President's budget request totaled a new record of approximately $3.8 trillion in Federal spending--that's 25 percent of our GDP--and increased our deficit to $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year 2010. In order to pay for this record level of spending, the budget request increases taxes by approximately $2 trillion over a 10-year period. His so-called spending freeze--well, that only applies to 13 percent of actual spending. With 10 percent of our workforce unemployed and over 15 million Americans out of work, there are families all across this country that are making sacrifices by cutting their expenses. So, Mr. Speaker, we need a budget that recognizes that we cannot spend, tax, and borrow our way into prosperity. That's never worked. Unfortunately, the President's budget does not recognize this simple fact.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Judge Carter, I thank you. I am glad to be with you tonight talking about a very, very serious issue. I will make the light comment before I begin and say that my good friend from Texas is not a right wing wacko, he is just a regular wacko. I am a right wing wacko from Georgia. But Judge Carter is actually not right wing nor is he a wacko, Mr. Speaker. What he is talking about tonight is extremely important. And I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are listening. I know that my former colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee listened very carefully ever since this incident occurred. And now of course the judge is talking about this 50-page report that our Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, ordered, commissioned to be done by a former Army Secretary and former Chief of Naval Operations. And Judge Carter, Mr. Speaker, I think expresses the view of probably most members of the House Armed Services Committee. I can't put words in their mouth, but I have served with them 6 years, loved being on that committee, led by the great chairman Ike Skelton and our ranking member Buck McKeon from California. And it is a great committee. And it is a bipartisan committee. It is probably the most bipartisan committee in the entire House of Representatives. I bet that is true on the Senate side as well. But Judge Carter is disappointed in this report, Mr. Speaker, and I am disappointed in this report. When we heard about this tragedy at Fort Hood in the great State of Texas at this Army military installation, which really is probably the epitome of the Army military installations--when you think about the Army you think about Fort Benning, the home of the infantry in my great State of Georgia down in Columbus, and you think about Fort Hood, probably the first two that come to your mind. But we were briefed. We, all members of the House of Representatives, all 435 of us, had an opportunity to go to a briefing that the military, the people from Fort Hood, commanders, I forget their names, probably good I don't remember the names because I don't want to use them here tonight, but they were telling us, ``Well, look, we responded correctly.'' Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what was said. ``The response to this incident, you would be proud. Members of Congress, you would be proud. Everything, we got all the emergency teams in, we locked down.'' The judge is talking about locking down the schools and all that and making sure the kids were safe. And they went on for about 30 minutes, describing how the response to this tragic attack, where this guy kills 14 and wounds 43 before we were able to take him down, and I want to say of course that we salute the heroism that was shown that day at Fort Hood, and I don't know who they were, but Judge Carter probably does, and God bless them for what they did. But my concern at the time was how do we have ourselves in a situation where anybody that goes nuts--of course we know this situation was far more than just an incident of somebody going nuts. And that is the purpose of the hour tonight the judge is talking about. But we should have been able to take this guy out you would think after he had shot three or four people at the most. But that is kind of another story, Mr. Speaker. I was just so concerned when I heard that briefing shortly after the incident that it was like the military was telling us, you know, you should be proud of the fact that we responded after the fact. And that is my whole point, Judge, in sharing a little bit of this time with you. It was like locking the barn door after the horse is long gone. And that is what we did. We did a good job of that. But what the judge is talking about here tonight, Mr. Speaker, is that when you have clear evidence that someone is a radical, has become radicalized, and you have this information and you don't share it--and indeed, as was pointed out tonight, Major Hasan was promoted during this time just right up through the ranks. You know, no holes on his promotion, no concern, because of, yes, I will say it, political correctness. They did not want to be in a position where let's say somebody could lose their job because they were calling out someone, blowing the whistle and saying this guy is showing signs of Islamic extremism. And we need to connect these dots, and somebody needs to examine this person and let a psychiatrist see him, the psychiatrist, Dr. Hasan. Doctor, you can't treat yourself, you need some help. Well, and I think that what the judge is saying, Mr. Speaker, is that we have got to stop this political correctness nonsense. We did the same thing I think, in my humble opinion, on Christmas Day with the undie bomber, when a decision was made after 50 minutes by one or two FBI agents talking with someone in the Justice Department, and that someone most likely was the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and saying, all right, this is not a terrorist, let's Mirandize this guy. And so he immediately gets lawyered up, as the expression goes, and shuts up on the advice of counsel. I was reading today, looking over the budget, the $3.8 trillion budget proposal which the President delivered to Congress on Monday. And in that budget the line item section in regard to what we have always called, and I think the world has known the global war on terrorism and the amount of money that we want to fund for that, we call it overseas contingency operations or some such nonsense like that. Nowhere in that budget, no matter how many hundreds of billions of dollars we need to fight that war, do we call it a war on terror. Oh, God no. God forbid we do that because it is politically incorrect. We don't want to offend anybody. I say call a spade a spade. And that is exactly, Mr. Speaker, what Judge Carter is trying to point out to our colleagues tonight. Make sure people understand if we are serious about protecting this country, the security of this country, we are going to stop all this nonsense and we are going to call a spade a spade and we are going to fight terrorism where we find it.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Judge, would you yield just for a second? Judge Carter, I don't know whether you pointed this out before I got to the floor, but this guy, Major Hasan, was quoted as saying that sharia law should trump the United States Constitution. Am I correct on that?

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I yield back.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for yielding. I just wanted to quote some of my friends on the Armed Services Committee, the ranking member--actually also on the Education and Labor Committee--Colonel John Kline. Colonel Kline is a subcommittee Chair, I believe, on Armed Services as well. He has been there since we were elected in the 108th, back in 2003. So this is his eighth year on the Armed Services Committee. It is very appropriate that Colonel John Kline is there because of his service in the United States Marines. But Judge Carter, here is what Colonel Kline said. Mr. Speaker, I want to quote this. ``The American people recognize that the 9/11 Commission was correct when it said we have an enemy, and it's Islamist extremists--their words--and the concern is that we may not be paying attention to the fact that the alleged perpetrator was, in fact, an Islamic extremist.'' Judge Carter is telling us, Mr. Speaker--and certainly I agree with him--that this is not about diversity, the importance of diversity in the military. We all understand that. We all understand that. We have great men and women of all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds. They have one thing in common: They swear, as we do, as Members of Congress, to uphold the Constitution and defend this country. And that will be continued to be held in common. But this business of being politically correct for fear of offending but not being able to say, He did it, and here is the evidence, and everybody knows it, and for fear that you are going to get reprimanded--and that's what Judge Carter's other bill is all about, Mr. Speaker. So I thank him for giving me the opportunity to join a good friend on the floor to encourage our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. There are 95 cosponsors. I hope tomorrow there will be 150, and the next day there will be 300, and that when this comes to a vote--and hopefully it will--we'll get a near--maybe we can put it on the suspension calendar and it will pass without controversy. I yield back to my friend.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Thank you, Judge. I want to thank John Carter, Mr. Speaker, for introducing two pieces of legislation. I hope he'll discuss that with our Members tonight in regard to the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. H.R. 4267 is the number of that bill, Mr. Speaker. And then the other one, equally important, the Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act, H.R. 4088. I know Judge Carter, Representative Carter, will talk about that as a great Member who is actually cochairman of the House Army Caucus. So this is a labor of love on the part of this Member, Mr. Speaker. I can understand how upset he must be, as we all are, regarding this 50- page report. Here, again, distinguished cochairs--the former Army Secretary, the former Chief of Naval Operations--who were charged by our Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, in a very timely manner to produce a 50-page report. But, you know, Mr. Speaker, this report, again, there's not a word in there in regard to terrorism, Islamic extremism. I don't know whether they scrubbed it before they did the report or they scrubbed it after they did the report. It's so disappointing to see that you spend all that time saying, Well, maybe we need to streamline the way the sergeant talks to the lieutenant and the lieutenant talks to the captain and the captain talks to the major and the majors talk to the colonels and lieutenant colonels and then finally we get the information to the generals and to the admirals. That's all well and good, but it's almost like a deliberate attempt to miss the point. The point is, as Judge Carter has pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that we are dealing with an individual, in the case of Major Hasan, that is a terrorist. He has been radicalized. The judge has pointed out that there was information even from his time in the Army Medical School that he made radical statements. I mentioned just a second ago that he was quoted as saying that sharia law should trump our Constitution. Well, when you're commissioned as an officer in the military, when you enlist in the military, you make a pledge of fidelity to this country. And so the warning sign was there. I will go back to the time, Mr. Speaker, when Representative Carter, Judge Carter, and I were freshmen Members of the 108th Congress. The 9/ 11 issue had occurred shortly before we got here. And the families of those victims, over 3,000, insisted that we form a commission, a 9/11 Commission, and we really look into this. Quite honestly, President Bush at the time was a little reluctant. He felt like the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, and the military intelligence could do all that. In any regard, a commission was formed. And we were told by the commissioners that this was a problem in regard to Islamic extremism and we needed to do something about it. And to then come along with this report that was commissioned by Secretary Gates, I think, is a tremendous disservice and disappointment. And I will yield back to Judge Carter.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield, and, Mr. Speaker, I thank Judge Carter for yielding. I don't think that the logic of this legislation is a stretch in any way. I'm sitting hear listening, Mr. Speaker, to my colleague from Texas describe this bill, Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act, H.R. 4088. I would think that you ought to get 434 votes, if not 435, in the House of Representatives, and 100 in the Senate, Judge, is my opinion, because that Islamic extremist--and, as you say, camouflaged in an Army uniform with officer's insignia on that uniform--is every bit of an Islamic extremist as those characters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, aided and abetted, I think, by Iran, in many instances, that make those improvised explosive devices, that put them in the ground, that detonate them cowardly in a remote fashion and blow our young men and women to smithereens. I've had over 30 from my congressional district in the 11th of Georgia pay the last full measure. And that's what these 14 that were killed and 43 or whatever the number is in Fort Hood. Same thing. Exact same thing. And so, Mr. Speaker, I commend them. I think it's absolutely right. They should have a status to ensure full benefits and eligibility for the Purple Heart and a civilian equivalent award for those who are civilians. They were killed not by just some ordinary nut. They were killed by an Islamic extremist in the same fashion that our men and women are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Absolutely, the gentleman is right. And so people are sick and tired of being disrespected. They were very disappointed of course in the economic stimulus package, $787 billion that was supposed to keep the unemployment rate at 8 percent, no higher than 8 percent. It is 10.2 percent now. 16 million Americans out of work, many of them in the Bay State. I think it is a message. It is a message to the administration, to President Obama, and the Democratic majority, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Harry Reid in the Senate. Look, you still have an opportunity, my colleagues, you still have an opportunity to come together in a bipartisan way and do things in an incremental fashion that truly will lower the cost of health insurance for everybody and make it better and rein in, yes, the abuses of the health insurance industry as well. And what is this big rush, anyway? The Democratic majority, Mr. Speaker, insisted on getting it done in 2009. They didn't want to face this during an election year. Well, look, the American people are saying to us, and especially to the majority and to the President, We don't care about the next election. Get it right. Don't rush to judgment. What is the big hurry? Why not get it done in 2011 if it takes that long? But get it done right. The people of Massachusetts went to the polls, they knew that their bill was an abject failure, and that is basically what they were saying. If the administration and this majority ignores it, they do it at their own peril. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Iowa, because I know there are others that want to speak tonight.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I gladly yield to my friend from Tennessee.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I think that I thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding. And I am not going to say one word about the Hawkeyes and the Yellow Jackets. Maybe we will come back to that another year. But congratulations, by the way, to the Hawkeyes. They did a great job. Mr. Speaker, it is an opportunity to come before our colleagues tonight and to join with Representative King from Iowa and Representative Roe, Dr. Roe from Tennessee, and later on you will hear from Michelle Bachmann, Representative Bachmann from Minnesota, talking about the health care bill and health care reform in general. I think we would be remiss if we didn't talk about the election yesterday in the Bay State, Massachusetts. Many of my colleagues have already spoken about that. And there is a lot of political pundits on every channel, cable, broadcast, network, whatever, trying to analyze and say, well, what happened? How did this occur? And, you know, we all have our own opinion, but quite honestly, I think it is a lot about health care. It was kind of instructive that when people were asked, coming out of a voting booth, what they thought about the health care reform bill in the Bay State that the same percentage that were opposed to it is the percentage that Senator-elect Scott Brown received in the election. It was the same margin. So clearly, health care was a significant issue in that race in my opinion. I think the people in Massachusetts clearly had about a year-and-a- half, 2 years to look at the commonwealth care that was enacted. And they don't like it, Mr. Speaker. They don't like it because it, instead of lowering the cost of health care, it has driven it up. Although more people are insured and have coverage in the Bay State, they are, as my colleagues have talked about in regard to other systems, there is a long queue, there is a long wait. It is very difficult to get a physician to see you, particularly if you are one of those who has a subsidized policy. And basically, the state is going broke. And they have had to make a number of changes. They have had to drop dental care as part of the coverage. They have had to drop many thousands of legal immigrants who were not citizens, but had coverage. They no longer have coverage. And I know my colleague especially, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Roe from Tennessee has probably already talked about TennCare and their experiment 10, 12, 15 years ago, and the miserable failure of that. So yes indeed, health care had a lot to do with the outcome yesterday in Massachusetts. But it was not just health care. I think that people are so tired, Mr. Speaker, of this Federal Government ignoring them and dissing them, as the expression goes. We had the August recess that lasted 5 weeks, and all of these town hall meetings all across the country, and we come back, and you would think that the majority party and the administration would have listened to those people. And instead, what they did is they simply changed the number on the House bill. They took off H.R. 3200, because the people had railed against it so loudly over that 5-week period of time, instead they just changed the number on the bill.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Con. Res. 158, a resolution expressing support for the designation of an Early Detection Month for breast cancer and all forms of cancer. Breast cancer in women is one of the most frequent forms of cancer recognized in the more than 2 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year in the United States. In fact, every 13 minutes a woman dies from breast cancer, and in 2009 alone, 192,370 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.S. This resolution recognizes the importance of early detection for breast cancer victims and is paramount due to the deadly nature of the disease. Mr. Speaker, the United States Preventative Services Task Force recommendations--against routine mammography for women ages 40 to 49 and breast self-examinations--were shocking to say the least. As a practicing OB/GYN physician for nearly 30 years, I saw first hand the benefits that early detection of cancer in women can have on saving lives and improving quality of life. Therefore, it is imperative that this House duly recognizes the significance of self-examination and early detection of breast cancer. The designation of Early Detection Month will enhance public awareness of the catastrophic and devastating effects of cancer. Hopefully, this resolution will shine further light on a disease that so commonly affects millions of Americans and in turn help to promote research and advanced medical procedures that will one day lead to a cure. I urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 1008 to honor the contributions of Catholic schools across the country, and in honor of 2010 National Catholic Schools Week from January 31st through February 6th. I want to thank my colleagues--Mr. Lipinski of Illinois and Mr. Smith of New Jersey--for their leadership in bringing this resolution to the House floor today, and I am proud to join them on this important resolution as an original cosponsor. As a graduate of Catholic elementary and high schools--Sacred Heart Academy and Aquinas High School in Augusta, Georgia--I am keenly aware of the contributions that they provide to the 2.2 million students educated in Catholic schools across the country every year. These include close to 1,200 students at three Catholic schools in my District: St. Catherine of Siena in Kennesaw, St. Joseph's in my hometown of Marietta, and St. Mary's in Rome. Not only do Catholic schools--like Sacred Heart and Aquinas--provide a strong and competitive academic environment, they also teach moral and ethical standards, skills for living and self esteem, and a Christian integration of spirit, mind, and body in each of their students. Upon graduating from Aquinas, I thought that the Catholic school curriculum would be what best prepared me for my future. However, I must admit that I was wrong. While the strenuous academics at Sacred Heart and Aquinas did lay the foundation for success at Georgia Tech and the Medical College of Georgia, it was the faith and ethical standards taught at these schools that truly prepared me for life's struggles. Mr. Speaker, while opening and running my medical practice, the respect for life taught at Sacred Heart and Aquinas led me to value and care for life at all stages, indeed from the moment of conception until natural death. Now that I have left my medical career to serve as a Member of Congress, I find the lessons learned from my days in Catholic schools more valuable now than ever. On a daily basis, I am confronted by difficult questions that affect millions of lives. If it were not for the moral standards and faith in God taught at Sacred Heart and Aquinas, I do not believe that I could properly represent the people of Northwest Georgia. Mr. Speaker, our education system is only made stronger by Catholic schools in Northwest Georgia and throughout the nation which fully prepare their students for a brighter future. I urge all of my colleagues to support H. Res. 1008, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, as we begin the second session of the 111th Congress, more than 15 million Americans are looking for work. Our Nation's unemployment rate is 10 percent--actually, 12 percent in the 11th District of Georgia, which is the highest level of unemployment since June of 1983. Last year, Democrats promised that borrowing almost $1 trillion on the backs of our children and grandchildren would create jobs immediately and that unemployment would not rise above 8 percent. Clearly, that is not the case. So as we start this session, I urge Democratic leaders to finally take some commonsense steps to create jobs and to make health care more affordable. That means putting an end to spending money that we don't have. It means not continuing to pass legislation that imposes job- killing taxes on our small businesses, and it means passing health care legislation that actually reduces health care costs for all Americans without cutting their benefits. Madam Speaker, the American people cannot afford any more of the Democrats' agenda for killing jobs and for growing the Federal Government.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, just for a second. The American people--and I think that my colleagues would agree with me--the American people have spoken, haven't they?

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, even so, we're talking about one-sixth of the whole economy of this great country of ours, and it's going to expand. I yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Over 60 percent of them are vehemently opposed to this government takeover that Dr. Broun is talking about. I will make one other comment before yielding back to my friend, and that is that the Speaker herself--Mr. Speaker, you're in her stead in the chair this evening, but the Speaker, back in 2006 on the campaign trail when your party did indeed take over the majority, Mr. Speaker, Madam Speaker--minority leader at the time--said to the American people, You give us an opportunity to take back over control of the leadership of this Congress, this House of Representatives, and you will see the most open process you have ever seen. It will be a breath of fresh air. That sun will be shining in. The American people will come up and the children will sit around as I'm sworn in and they will be right there at my knee and I will be patting them on the head, Mr. Speaker, she said. And it will be wonderful. Happy days are here again. Well, when you say something like that--and I think my colleagues agree with me, Mr. Speaker--you need to deliver. Now, she could have said, back in 2006 on the campaign trail, These rotten Republicans who have run this place for 12 years and they haven't given us a fair shake. Man, you give us an opportunity, put us back in, when we get there, we are going to roll them at every opportunity. Well, she would have been speaking the truth, Mr. Speaker. Madam Speaker would have been speaking the truth. That's what she should have done because that's what she did. We have no openness here. It's kind of like our current President said, you know, a change you can believe in. Mr. Speaker, I don't think this is the change the American people were expecting, and they certainly don't believe in it. I yield back to my colleague.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, and I thank the gentleman, I want to continue in just a second and introduce our next speaker, the gentleman from Tennessee and a fellow OB/GYN physician, Dr. Phil Roe. But the gentleman from Athens, Georgia, is absolutely right. And as he pulled out his pocket Constitution--and I'm so proud of him for keeping it with him at all times because there are things in this bill that we think, Mr. Speaker, and I think the American people feel are unconstitutional, that are unconstitutional. I hope Dr. Roe will speak of that. These issues are so important at this 11th hour to not let the American people see the process for Madam Speaker and the Democratic leadership and the President. I showed you all the quotes at the outset of the hour, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, and you know he said it, she said it. It's time to deliver. I yield to my good friend from Tennessee.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield----

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman. I wanted to also mention a couple of responses from the White House in regard to the present CEO of C-SPAN requesting that the negotiations, whatever they are--whether there is a ping-pong back and forth between the House and the Senate or a mini conference or a full conference, whatever the deal is, for goodness sakes, let the American people see it. Even if they shut us Republicans out, let the American people have the opportunity. C-SPAN said, Look, we will provide all of the equipment--the digital--just as they do in this Chamber. On the Sunday Morning show, Mr. Speaker--and I'm sure most of us watch it. I watch it every Sunday--here is what the press secretary, the Honorable Robert Gibbs, said on January 5, 2010. The reporter asked: Did the President regret making that earlier promise to broadcast meetings on C-SPAN? Robert Gibbs' response: The President's number one priority is getting a bill through the House and the Senate. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we get that. Let's get ourselves out of this hole that we've dug at any cost, with any sweetheart deal, whatever we have to do to get 60 votes. Let's pass this darned thing so that I can stand up here at the State of Union and declare victory. We can all pound our chests and do the high fives and the knuckle to knuckle, or however you do that these days, and declare victory and, for goodness sakes, move on to something else because this is killing us. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, if and when that happens, it is going to kill the American people. I have great concerns, and my colleagues do as well. I yield back to the gentleman from Athens, Georgia.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia.--Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of the teachers in the great State, the volunteer State, are having to take furloughs and leaves of absences and are having to work short days and that kind of thing. I yield back.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield----

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia.--I want him to go on and on because he has got a lot of facts to present. The point, Mr. Speaker, is about AARP and other organizations and about wanting the people to have the opportunity to see for themselves with their eyes and to listen to the debate with their ears and to figure it out with common sense and to connect the dots. I mean, AARP, you know, do they make some money off the deal? I do want to make one point, before yielding back to the gentleman from Tennessee, recognizing the good people of Nebraska--the Corn Husker State--and coach Tom Osborne, who is a former Member of this body, a great colleague, a friend of ours who is now the athletic director at the University of Nebraska. It's a great, great State. To their great credit, the Governor said, We don't want it. We don't want this sweetheart deal. This is not right. I commend him, and I commend the State of Nebraska for understanding, Mr. Speaker, the inequity, the realization that the sweetheart deal for them means crumbs and bacon bits for everybody else. They understand that. Of course, now the Senator who was able to effect this sweetheart deal is saying, No, let's not rescind the deal. Let's just give the deal to everybody. Then what's going to be the true cost? Instead of $1.2 trillion, it will be $2 trillion; but anyway, I digress a bit. Let me yield back to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. I thank the gentleman from Texas. I thank the gentleman from the great State of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we thank all for the opportunity for the members of the GOP Doctors Caucus to spend some time tonight to explain to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle what our concerns are. I think we did it in a very fair way. We did it in a way that is not a personal attack on any individual, any Member of this body, any member of the administration. We are just asking to give the American people a fair shake. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.