mr. speaker , i thank chairman regula for yielding me this time . 
and i thank him for not only his work product today , but for his many , many years of service to this country and to this congress . 
he has been a remarkable leader throughout his career , and there is no one in this house who can question his sincerity or his knowledge of the issues that he is responsible for . 
i rise today in strong support of this bill . 
we will hear much from the other side of the aisle about what is missing from this bill , why we are not spending enough in this bill . 
we are spending $ 142 billion on the needs of our american citizens . 
that is more money than the entire budgets , the entire budgets , of russia , china , germany , and we could throw in 15 or 20 other countries . 
this is more money than they spend on their entire budget including their military . 
it is a pretty remarkable commitment to our nation and to our fellow citizens . 
this is money that does not come easy . 
this does not come from god . 
this comes out of people 's pockets . 
we are going to hear an awful lot about these tax cuts . 
well , we have tried to reduce the tax burden on americans who are paying for these benefits . 
they pay for these benefits out of the goodness of their heart . 
first of all , they have to pay taxes to help support our government . 
we take that money , we turn it around , and most of the money we spend goes toward helping our fellow americans , and that is what this bill is all about . 
congressman bill natcher , god rest his soul , used to refer to this as `` the people 's bill. '' this is the bill that helps educate our kids , that helps keep us healthy , that pays for social security and medicare and medicaid and all of our federal health programs . 
and i do not know how anyone , except for nibbling around the edges , could criticize an effort where we are spending these tremendous amounts of money to help those among us who are less fortunate . 
but there is also the argument that we will hear on the other side of the aisle about our deficits , that our deficits are too high , our deficits are growing , our deficits , our deficits , our deficits ; but every time we bring a bill to the floor , there is not enough money in it . 
they can not have both ways . 
they can not rail against deficits and then tell us that we need to spend more money on every program in the federal budget . 
there is no question these are difficult choices , but i think if i were going to entrust my decisions on these things to anyone , it would be to congressman regula , who has been doing this for so many years . 
there are a lot of problems in our country , lots of them , and we have them in our home towns , our big cities , our rural areas , and this is an effort to deal with those problems . 
for example , our party , we have , since we have become the majority , provided billions and billions more in dollars for education , remembering that the education dollar , public education , was 95 percent state and local funds . 
now it is about 92 because we have so dramatically increased our contribution to that . 
and yet 50 percent of the kids who start high school in the united states today do not finish high school . 
that is a tragedy and it is atrocious , and it shows it is not just about the money . 
it is about parents , it is about school boards , it is about teachers , it is about kids , getting it right , taking a serious look at our public educational system in this country and realizing , as so many have said , that we we are also providing billions and billions of dollars for health care . 
in this bill we are not even talking about the brand new medicare prescription drug benefit , the $ 400 billion prescription drug benefit that congress just enacted that is just taking place today . 
again , what a remarkable response by the government of the united states to the needs of our senior citizens , because everybody knows that health care in this country has changed . 
people do not just go to the hospital anymore to get an operation . 
they go to the doctor , they get prescription drugs . 
the prescription drugs help them to live long , healthy , quality lives . 
and because of these programs like medicare , medicare prescription drugs , social security , we now have the healthiest and wealthiest group of senior citizens that the world has ever seen . 
this is a continuing commitment to that . 
i urge my colleagues to forget about the nibbling around the edges and support a good solid bill that will help our fellow americans . 
