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 .  