John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is flawed in many respects. It provides $7.5 billion in loans to cities, States, and nonprofits to buy foreclosed homes from mortgage lenders who made bad loans. That will not help people avoid foreclosures. In addition, it provides $7.5 billion in grants to rehabilitate those homes. As such, it is a giveaway to the mortgage industry that made bad loans. Nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit is a genuine attempt to improve this bill. If the majority insists on going down this path, the least we can do is to give those who have served our Nation the highest priority in receiving housing assistance under this legislation, and to make sure that those who have preyed upon our society as criminals are not helped by the legislation. In its present form, the bill allows homes acquired and rehabilitated with taxpayer money to be purchased by convicted drug dealers, convicted sex offenders, and people who have been convicted of mortgage fraud. Last night our colleague, Mr. Altmire, offered an amendment that prohibits homes made available for sale under this bill, acquired and rehabilitated with taxpayer dollars, from being sold to illegal immigrants. That was a good amendment and I am glad to see that the House just now overwhelmingly adopted it. In advocating for his amendment, Mr. Altmire said that homes made available through this bill should be available only to law abiding U.S. citizens. My colleagues, Mr. Altmire is right. This motion to recommit brings the same commonsense to this bill that Mr. Altmire's amendment did. It simply says that homes made available under the bill cannot be sold to drug dealers, sex offenders, or people convicted of mortgage fraud. I ask my colleagues, imagine how you would feel if your taxes were taken under this legislation and used by the government to purchase foreclosed homes, then to rehabilitate a foreclosed home in your neighborhood, and then if that house was put on the market and sold by the government to a convicted drug dealer, a convicted sex offender, or person guilty of fraud in the mortgage industry who contributed to the very housing turmoil we are now faced with. You would be outraged, and you should be. We cannot let that happen under this legislation. The second provision of the motion to recommit corrects another defect in the bill. Yesterday an amendment was offered to provide veterans and public safety officers such as firemen and police with a preference in purchasing homes made available under this bill. The chairman of the committee quite appropriately accepted that amendment. But we can do better than that. This motion to recommit takes that concept one step further. It provides that disabled American veterans are to be accorded an even higher preference in acquiring homes under this legislation. Mr. Speaker, every Member in this body is aware tragically that American soldiers are returning with horrific wounds. Like many of you, I have been to Landstuhl Hospital in Germany and visited our fighting men and women. I have been to Walter Reed Army Hospital and visited them. It is wonderful that we can save their lives, but this motion to recommit recognizes and rewards their sacrifices. It provides that disabled veterans, seeking to purchase a home made available under this legislation, must be given first preference. Mr. Speaker, these are commonsense changes to this bill that will improve it, and I urge my colleagues to adopt them by passing this motion to recommit. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. SHADEGG. Is it correct that the motion just brought by the gentleman from Ohio was brought pursuant to rule IX and was on a question of the privileges of the House?

Mr. SHADEGG. And is it correct that that motion was then tabled and that was the action the House just took?

Mr. SHADEGG. Further parliamentary inquiry. If it had not been tabled, then it would have been debatable for 1 hour, is that correct?

Mr. SHADEGG. Is it not true that earlier this year there have been questions of the privileges of the House where they have not been tabled and they have been debated for an hour?

Mr. SHADEGG. And could be debated for an hour?

Mr. SHADEGG. Is it not true that in the last Congress, the then minority leader and the now Speaker raised a similar question of the privileges of the House pursuant to rule IX after a vote was held open and that on that question of privileges of the House, in fact, the majority, the then majority, now minority, allowed a debate of an hour and that the conduct of the House in holding a vote open to change the result of the vote was debated for an hour?

Mr. SHADEGG. I'm sorry. The gentleman is correct?

Mr. SHADEGG. So the effect of immediately tabling the question of privileges raised by the gentleman from Ohio was to deny the minority the ability to debate that issue for an hour as was done when the same thing happened last Congress, is that correct?

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I move the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for yielding, and I want to commend her for her work. You know, there is a story here tonight. There's a story the Nation needs to know. There's a story of an institution charged with protecting this Nation and carrying out the responsibilities of this government, and it is a story of shame. It is a story of failure. It is a story of an institution that's supposed to be doing its job and isn't. And I commend the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) for her efforts to bring that story forward, to point out the 3,565-page bill that was laid on us less than 20 hours ago when we were given less than 20 hours to pass it. But the real story here, I would suggest, is a story that some of my colleagues have already commented on, and that is the story of 9,200 earmarks in this bill. Now, I suppose if you're an average American you're sitting back at home and you flip through the TV channel and you catch C-SPAN and you know generally what an earmark is. But let me tell you what it is. An earmark is an effort by a Member of Congress to name some little project that will somehow benefit, or they can make an argument that it will benefit, them or their constituents in some way, and yet, sadly, when you examine those earmarks, you find one thing is true. Every single one of them is self-serving, designed to get that Member of Congress re-elected, and every single one of them is put in there with huge effort. Now, in this bill, we have 9,200 individual Member projects, earmarks, if you will, inserted in the bill. You heard my colleague, Mr. Ryan from Wisconsin, point out that 300 of those Member projects or earmarks were dropped in this bill just last night. That is to say, they've never been seen before. Now, my colleague from Texas, Mr. Hensarling, pointed out that none of us could do what I was asked to do when I ran in 1994. When I ran for the United States Congress in 1994, my constituents said to me, Congressman, we want you to go back there and promise us you'll never vote for a bill that you haven't read. Ladies and gentlemen, no one can read a 3,565-page bill in 20 hours. It can't done be done. I had a conservation with a constituent this weekend when I was home, and he said to me, because I was complaining to him about earmarks, about misspending, he said, Well, I thought that the Democrats cleaned that up. I thought that practice ended. I thought they'd ended that. I thought the reforms had changed that. Well, the gentlelady from Tennessee and the gentleman from Texas and my colleague from Wisconsin have pointed out the story of the night. The story of the night is all the talk about reform was just that; it was talk. Reform has not happened. If the American people believe that they elected a new majority to this Congress to end wasteful spending, it didn't happen. If they believe they elected a new majority to Congress to get things done in regular order so we could review the bills and read them before they were voted on, it did not happen. If the people across America believe they elected a new majority, and that new majority reformed the rules to end earmark abuse, it didn't happen, because those earmarks are here. Hillary Clinton's hippie museum, it's here. And God knows what else is in this bill, because the 3,565 pages which sit right there cannot possibly have been combed by all of us in this time. What you have heard is that while Congress could find time to put in 9,200 earmarks in this bill, and combined with prior bills, take the total earmarks for the year to 10,300, roughly, roughly $17.6 billion in Member projects and earmarks, we could find the time to do that. All the Members of Congress could, you know, write out their list requests and say, I need this project and I need that project and I need this project, and Hillary Clinton needs a hippie museum, and God knows what else is in this bill. But we couldn't find time, as my colleagues from Texas and Tennessee and Wisconsin have pointed out to you, we couldn't find time to put money in there for our soldiers in Iraq. Oh, we could find time to renovate the U.N.'s headquarters in New York. We could find time to essentially overturn the Secure Fence Act by making it almost impossible to build that fence. We could find time to craft 692 pages of individual Member requests, little requests, fund this so that I look good and I get re-elected. We could find time for that. We could find time for 9,200 of those. We could air-drop, that's right, you heard, air-drop earmarks. What does that term mean? Well, an air-drop earmark is an earmark that is inserted in a bill after it has left both the House and the Senate. How many of those are there in this bill that nobody's ever seen, perhaps, but the author of the bill? There are 300 of those. So we could find time for 9,200 earmarks, 300 of them air-dropped, never seen before. No American, no average American back home has had any chance to review them. We could find time for that, but we could not find time to fund the war in Iraq. I commend the gentlelady for bringing these facts forward. I think it is a story that America needs to know. They need to know that this Congress, as the gentlelady from Tennessee pointed out, was supposed to do this work clear back last August, last September, and be done with it. But they couldn't find time to do it until now, almost Christmas Eve. But by gosh, they could find time for their earmarks, their pet projects. But no time for the Nation's defense. I commend the gentlelady from Tennessee. I appreciate her yielding me time. I think this is a story the American people know about, need to know about, and I think it's worth saying here one more time. My friend Tom Cole from Oklahoma said, ``Earmarks are a gateway drug to higher spending. I suggest this bill proves that to be true. Once again, earmarks pave the way for higher spending. And as my colleague from Texas pointed out, that means higher taxes, less money in the pocketbooks and wallets of the American people, more money in the hands of the government to, frankly, misspend in ways to try to get themselves re-elected. I think it's an important story. I think it's a sad day, and I commend the gentlelady for asking the time, late at night to take her time and to work hard to make sure that some Americans know the abuse that's going on, the outrages, the hundreds of thousands of earmarks and the hundreds of thousands of air-dropped earmarks, special projects nobody has ever seen that are put into this bill. And I commend you for the job you're doing.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think this is a very, very important debate. I understand the frustration of the majority in trying to deal with this issue, but I believe they have created a structure that even they themselves don't understand, and a structure that fundamentally turns the Constitution and the role of at least two branches of the government upside down. We have the executive branch which is charged with defending the Nation against foreign enemies and we have the judicial branch which is charged with applying and interpreting the laws. But it is charged with judging disputes between American citizens, not with making decisions how about to gather foreign intelligence. Now, how does this bill work? Number one, it says if the executive branch in carrying out its duty to protect the country from foreign enemies knows in advance that both people, both ends of a telephone communication or some other electronic communication, are in fact foreigners, no warrant is needed. Well, if we could be mind readers and if we could hire mind readers as intelligence officers, that might be useful. But everyone in the intelligence community tells you that have targeted one person, and without the ability to read the mind of that person, you don't know who the other person they are calling is. So as a matter of fact, you can never know, never ever know, no CIA agent, no judge, nobody can ever know that both people are foreigners. And so if the law says if you don't know that both are foreigners, you must get a warrant from a judge. Now they have said we are going to be reasonable about it; it is going to be a basket warrant. But that then gives the duty of protecting the Nation to a judge, an unelected judge.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that this bill raises a fundamental question: Do we trust judges, unelected judges, to control foreign intelligence? Are we going to move that responsibility from the executive branch to judges? Or is that not their job? As I explained earlier, this measure requires that a warrant be obtained every single time you are seeking to gather foreign intelligence. That means that we are asking Federal judges, who are unelected, to decide in 100 percent of the cases whether we can or cannot gather intelligence. Now, I respect judges. I admire judges. But judges have the duty of deciding disputes between Americans. They do not have the responsibility to protect our Nation. But this bill says you can never gather intelligence from a foreigner without first going and getting a warrant. So a job that under our Constitution has been given to the executive branch, that is, to conduct foreign intelligence and protect the Nation, we are now taking from the executive branch and giving to judges. Because unelected Federal judges, who have no responsibility to protect our Nation, no responsibility to gather foreign intelligence, now get to decide, this has never been true in the history of our Nation, whether or not the Federal Government will gather any intelligence. I respect judges. I am all for judges. If I am in a dispute over the civil rights of an American, I want a judge to decide. But when it comes to gathering intelligence about terrorists, we are going to take that authority away from the executive branch, which we have never done in the past, and give it to judges and judges only? Judges whom we cannot defeat in office, judges who are appointed, judges who do not stand for election, judges who cannot be voted out of office? We are going to take the authority away from the executive branch to protect our Nation and in 100 percent of cases give it to unelected judges. That is a mistake.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am stunned at this debate. All of our colleagues are watching. Yeah, we brought you a rule that says transparency was a good idea. We still believe transparency is a good idea, but that rule is being waived here. We are not being allowed to debate air-dropped earmarks dropped into this legislation. We are not being allowed to follow the rule. Now, let's see if I understand this. It is okay for America if you adopt rules that require transparency, but it is also okay if you just waive the rules that require transparency, because after all, you said you were for transparency and adopted a rule for transparency and you just waived it. So there is no transparency. I believe it is vitally important that the American people know how their money is spent. I think they would want to know that we are spending millions of dollars in air-dropped earmarks for things that make no sense in the Defense bill, including golf training. I have yet to meet a soldier who didn't perhaps want to improve his golf game, but I have yet to meet a taxpayer who thought we ought to be funding that. You are either for transparency or not. I think it is simple and straightforward.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my disappointment and sadness at the majority's politicization of funding for our veterans. This is a sad day. Today, the majority is tying Veterans Affairs funding to outrageous overspending in a completely separate bill to pork. That is a sad day. It's using our veterans for political gain. America's veterans deserve better than that. They deserve the support of the American people, and they certainly deserve the support of this Congress. Yet, as you've heard, the Veterans Affairs appropriations act passed this Congress months ago. It should have gone to the President. But here we stand today fighting the leadership of the Democratic Party who has decided to attach that bill to a separate, contentious, already bloated spending measure, essentially to blackmail our veterans. Madam Speaker, next week is Veterans Day, and this is how we're honoring our veterans who have served our country and fought for our freedom. Our veterans deserve the money in this legislation. They deserve to have the appropriation passed as a stand-alone. I call on the Congress to do that now, today, and not to punish our Nation's veterans.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I want to take this opportunity tonight to discuss one of the hottest topics here in Washington, a topic that has occupied much of our time. It's been an issue on which we have debated and discussed extensively. And I think that's been good for the American people because it has enabled them to learn what they didn't know to begin with. The topic I want to discuss is the proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, what you have commonly heard referred to as SCHIP. That's a program that was created a number of years ago, and the President has put on the table some parameters about how to renew the program, but the Democrats have decided, no, we need to dramatically expand the program. And I think it's important to discuss these issues and for the American people to understand what is involved. But on this one, I think it's more important than usual. And I think a way to illustrate that is that very recently a Republican colleague of mine was stopped by a reporter here on Capitol Hill. The reporter said to him, hey, how can Republicans possibly vote against the State Children's Health Insurance Program? And the reporter was incredulous at this thought, given that it's a health insurance for children and that its title said it's the State Children's Health Insurance Program, how is it the Republicans thought they could vote against a bill with that title? Well, fortunately, my colleague, who was quick of mind, said, I think a better question is, how could any Member of Congress vote for a bill based solely on its title? And, in fact, that's what the Democrats are urging us to do, vote for this dramatic expansion of this health care program just because its title indicates it's for children. And in reality, you begin to take apart the various levels of the onion, the layers of the onion and examine the program and you discover, well, it's supposed to be an insurance plan for poor, uninsured children; and yet, if you examine it, you discover that it's not for poor or even near-poor, it's not for uninsured and, in fact, it's not even for children, a rather stunning provision. You discover that it's actually for middle- to upper middle-income Americans, some of whose families make more than $60,000 a year, and in some States their families make more than $80,000 a year. That's hardly anybody's definition of poor. So, if it's not for poor children, then one would think, well, it's supposed to be for uninsured children. And yet, you discover, no, as a matter of fact, 61 percent of the children who originally became eligible for this program already had insurance. So, the program hasn't really been to help uninsured children, at least not initially, 61 percent of the children who are eligible already had private insurance, and they dropped that insurance to go on this government program. Well, then you look at the CBO score of the current Democrat bill. And we ought to talk about how many times they've brought this up and the President has vetoed it, and I know there are some of my colleagues here who will discuss that, but the Congressional Budget Office scored the current proposal that's before us, and CBO said that one out of every two children who become eligible under the new bill, under the bill that Democrats would have before us now, one out of every two will already have private health insurance. One out of two new children who become eligible for this program will already have private insurance. And if they decide to drop that private insurance and go on the SCHIP program, this Cuban-style, government-run program, well, half of those people will have already had private insurance and they will drop that insurance. That opens the door for a discussion, I think, about the fact that, and CBO estimates 2 million; if 2 million kids in America who have private insurance drop their private insurance to go on this new expanded government program, the cost of that private insurance for everyone else will go up. So, let's see: It's not for poor or near- poor; it's not for the uninsured. Surely, this program must be for children because, after all, the Democrats are saying nobody can vote against a bill that's called the State Children's Health Insurance Program, but. Voila, you discover, no, it's not just for children. As a matter of fact, there are a number of States where there are more adults on the State Children's Health Insurance Program than there are children on the program. As a matter of fact, I think in Wisconsin, it's 61 percent of the money is spent, not on children, 61 percent of the SCHIP money, State Children's Health Insurance Program money, 61 percent is spent on adults. I believe in Minnesota it's 75 percent of the money for the State Children's Health Insurance Program is spent on adults. I looked at my own State. I thought, you know, I'm in Arizona, I'm interested in what's going on in Arizona. Kind of a shocking fact I discovered, and that is, Arizona had, at one point in time, put 110,000 adults on the program, but, and listen to this one, this is the State Children's Health Insurance Program, they put 110,000 adults on the program, and 85,000 of those adults were childless. They didn't even have a child. Now, unfortunately, there is no such thing as truth in legislating, so it's okay to label a bill the State Children's Health Insurance Program and have it intend to cover poor and near-poor uninsured children, and then to dig into the weeds of the bill and read and discover, well, it's really not for poor and near-poor, it's for upper- and upper middle-income Americans. It's not for the uninsured, at least in several States, more than half are already uninsured. It's not even for children. It's for adults. And I think many Americans know that the President vetoed this bill. And then the majority party, the Democrats, decided to put off the override vote. And their thought was, well, we will put off the override vote and put these Congressmen under pressure to try to force them to vote for the State Children's Health Insurance Program and override the President's veto. Well, when the truth is on your side, when the facts actually help you, when the facts point out that the program isn't what its title says it is, it isn't really the State's Children's Health Insurance Program for poor and near-poor children who are uninsured, it actually covers middle-income kids and not-poor kids, it covers kids that are already insured and causes them to drop their private insurance, and it covers adults, the delay didn't help, and the delay caused more Americans to learn about the bill. But last week, on the last day we were here, once again the Democrat Party tried to stuff through a bill, without making any real changes to it, that had all these same flaws to it. And so, I thought it was important that we should come to the floor and talk about those issues. But there are actually more. I want to talk about the funding source. Because as challenging and as, in fact, untrue as the claims are about the bill covering poor children or uninsured children or even children, it turns out the funding mechanism is a scam as well. Actually, it's got all kinds of budget gimmicks in it, and it relies on certain things that simply will not come true and wouldn't be good policy if they did to fund it. But before we move on to the funding issues in this bill, which I think is important for the American people to know about, I would like to give some of my colleagues here on the floor a chance to talk about their view of the bill, why we do support health care for poor and near-poor children, we do support health care for uninsured children, we just don't want to do it for middle-income Americans. We don't want to do it for those who already have insurance. As a matter of fact, I've had a bill that I've introduced in this Congress every year for the last 10 years to give a refundable tax credit to every single American who can't afford health insurance and let them buy their own coverage. So, I support dealing with these kids who need care, but not in a way that deceives the public about what we're doing. I would be happy to yield to my colleague to give us her perspective on this important piece of legislation and help, perhaps, educate the American people about what this debate is and why we have the concerns we have about the bill.

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, I would like to just bring out a couple of the points that the gentlewoman from Tennessee mentioned and drive them home a little bit. I think the key one you mentioned was coverage of illegal aliens. As I understand it, the way the bill is written, it, in fact, appears to prohibit illegal aliens from being covered under the bill, but the authors of the bill have conscientiously, intentionally chosen vague language that would require virtually no proof of citizenship. Is that not correct? Would you explain that?

Mr. SHADEGG. The gentleman's remarks remind me of something I think we already know, and that is certainly with legislation the adage that the devil is in the details is pretty important. I think a lot of our Democrat colleagues, a lot of the majority, think we will put up a picture of a child, we will call it the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and no one can vote against it. And you know what, if it were the State Children's Health Insurance Program for children of the working poor who are uninsured, I would be all for it. But when you get into the details, it ain't quite so.

Mr. SHADEGG. I think that reason alone, the fact that it is funded by a mechanism that imposes a tax on the poorest Americans to pay for a subsidy to people making over $60,000, and in some instances over $80,000 a year, is reason enough for the President to have vetoed the bill.

Mr. SHADEGG. Income disregards is a perfect segue to what I want to talk about in this bill, and it stuns me, and I know that the authors of the bill have been confronted, and they have been asked to change the language to make it clear that this coverage would not go to illegal aliens. They have rejected that. They use the term ``income disregard.'' What the heck is an income disregard? People in my congressional district certainly don't know what it is. But it is game- playing. This is one I love. And you used the phrase, why would anyone write a bill and have it intentionally designed to fail; have it through kind of shifty means, through kind of squeaky wording, through provisions that you know won't hold up, have the program designed to fail. I think you are referring to one part of the bill that I find fascinating, and that is here as demonstrated on this graph. It turns out that for the first 5 years of this program in the bill the majority has put together, the Democrats' bill, they provide the funding for the program, for this new expanded SCHIP program. But we fund our bills over 10 years. It turns out that because of their rules on budgeting that they have to cut off funding, and in year 5, actually 6 months into year 5, 80 percent of the funding for the entire program goes away. It is kind of like Lucy and the football. They say, Well, we will fund it for 5 years, and then we are going to take 80 percent of the funding away in year 5, and that way we will trick people and make it appear that we have the money to fund the program. But that is not even quite as fascinating as one of the points I really want to bring out tonight in this debate, and that is, one of the funding mechanisms of the bill is a 61 cent per-pack increase in the cigarette tax. Now, you might say, Look, smoking is bad for people. Smoking is a habit we should discourage. So I am all for increasing the tax on cigarettes. I wouldn't have an argument with that. But here is the problem, and this is where we go to terms like ``income disregard'' and, actually, not honestly confronting the funding of the bill. It turns out that for this 61 cent income, or cigarette tax, to be sufficient to fund the bill, more people than currently smoke would have to take up the habit. As a matter of fact, the official estimates are that to pay for the bill with a cigarette tax increase that is in it, a staggering 22 million Americans will need to take up smoking. Now, I thought, how can a graph demonstrate 22 additional million Americans starting smoking? So I had my staff get 22 cartons of cigarettes. Here they are. We have got all 22 stacked here. I would like to have them out there where you can see them. There are 22 cartons of cigarettes here. And each carton represents an additional 1 million nonsmokers in this country who, to fund this bill if you leave it funded with the Democrat 61 cent per-pack cigarette tax, will have to start smoking. Now, maybe proponents of this bill think that having 1 million people for every one of these 22 cartons of cigarettes take up the habit and pay their tax is a good idea. I happen to not think it is a good idea. Mr. Speaker, for anybody who just tuned in, I want to tell them where we are. We are discussing the proposed expansion of the SCHIP program, a program that many of us are concerned is a bill that we will be forced to vote for because of its title. It is supposed to be a health care bill that provides health care to poor uninsured children. And it turns out that it provides health care not to poor children but to middle- and upper-income children whose families are making 60 to $80,000 a year, in some instances more. It turns out to cover not just uninsured children, but 61 percent of the people originally covered already had insurance, and that would displace them, causing the cost of private insurance for the rest of us to go up. It turns out it was supposed to be for children, and it is not actually for children. In some States, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, there are more adults covered than children and more money is spent on adults. Then the final point I was just making, and I don't know, I hope the camera will get the cigarette cartons stacked in front of me, but one of the funding mechanisms in the bill is an increase in the cigarette tax. You might think that an increase in the cigarette tax is a good idea. But unfortunately it doesn't do the trick because the proposed increase in the cigarette tax of 62 cents a pack, it turns out, will only work, it will only provide enough money to pay for the program called for in the bill if an additional 22 million, staggering, 22 million Americans take up smoking and pay the tax. So I thought to graphically illustrate that, I would get my staff to go out and acquire 22 cartons of cigarettes. Well, we couldn't afford the 22 cartons of cigarettes so we just got the outside of the cartons. But here they are stacked in front of me. You might say, Why are those cartons of cigarettes stacked in front of him? What's the big deal there? Doesn't he like cigarette taxes? That is not the issue. The issue is if each one of those cartons of cigarettes in front of me represents a million people in America who don't smoke today, a million Americans who don't smoke today, who, in order to fund this bill and have enough money coming in based on their cigarette tax, will have to start smoking in order to pay for the bill? Maybe somebody thinks that is good policy. Maybe somebody thinks we ought to be encouraging people to take up smoking and pay the 61 cent tax. I know my colleagues in Congress who are doctors probably don't think that is a great idea. I do have my colleague from Georgia here, Mr. Westmoreland. I would be happy to let him give his comments on the idea of 22 million new people starting smoking to pay for this bill that really isn't for uninsured poor children.

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, that is absolutely correct. One of the objections that those of us who think this is not a well-written piece of legislation, we support the policy. We are all in favor of taking care of poor children and ensuring that they have health care coverage. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, I have introduced a bill every year for the last 10 to provide a refundable tax credit to those children. But one of the things that we object to is the program currently covers adults and in several States there are more adults on the program than children; and yet as the gentleman from Georgia pointed out, there are millions of children who are, in fact, poor and who are, in fact, eligible to participate in this program who aren't currently participating. One of the amendments that we have suggested, but have never been allowed to offer on the floor because we have never been allowed to offer an amendment on the floor, would be an amendment that says, You can cover people at a higher level of poverty, you can go on up the income scale, after you have covered the poorest American children. The President has proposed that, as well.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time briefly, when we talk about 300 percent of the Federal poverty level or 400 percent of the Federal poverty level, the abuse of the program, can the gentleman tell us about how much money that means? We say this program is not directed just at poor or even, I like to say, nearly poor children. Poor children are supposed to be taken care of by Medicare. This is supposed to be for the near-poor.