mr. speaker , i thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time .  i want to compliment both speakers from the rules committee .  i think they have described in many ways the strength of this bill .  this bill illustrates the compassion of america .  and as has been pointed out by both speakers , it touches the lives of 280 million americans in so many different ways , their education , health research to improve the quality of their lives , perhaps illustrated by the fact , as dr .  zerhouni testified in front of our committee , that every 5 years , life expectancy goes up 1 year in the united states .  that is a tremendous gain and a tremendous promise for the future .  and , likewise , we recognize the importance of education .  the future of a nation is so much tied to that .  tom friedman , the writer for the new york times , in his book `` the world is flat , '' points out that we will be enormously challenged as a nation in the years ahead by other countries that are spending a lot of money , a lot of energy , and a lot of human resources on education , because they too recognize that the winner of the future will be determined by the way in which they can educate their people .  this bill i call the `` good neighbor policy '' bill , because it means that we are all good neighbors to each other .  and i think it does illustrate very clearly that america is a compassionate nation , a compassionate people , and they are willing to commit resources to helping others .  in the general debate , we will mention some of those things .  i would hope all of my colleagues who are going to be voting on this bill in the next couple or 3 hours would take a look at what is in there and how important many of these programs are to the americans .  there are 500 programs covered in this bill , and each one of them , in some way or another , touches the quality of life of the people of this nation so that every american , in one way or another , as pointed out by the gentlewoman from california , has a stake on this bill and what it does in their lives .  so , hopefully , we will all reach the understanding and support this bill .  obviously , it may not have enough to suit everybody in terms of commitment of resources .  tough decisions have to be made .  priorities have to be decided .  and what we tried to do on a bipartisan basis in the subcommittee , and we have a great group of members that serve on this subcommittee from both sides , is to make those very difficult priority judgments on behalf of the american people .  and as was pointed out by both of the previous speakers , we have , hopefully , accomplished that goal as best as possible given the resources that were allocated .  