Latest Answers
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
King: Well, if you say get rid of Medicare, you have to say get rid of Social Security and Medicaid. Those policies are established, they have created constituency bases, our entire society and culture has been rearranged because of them. The family dependency that we used to have where we took care of our parents and grandparents among our family and we liked to have big families then, so we had plenty of kids to pass us around when we got older. That's all disappeared.
Answered on Nov 23rd, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Three hundred million people is a huge risk pool, I'll concede that point. A 400% increase in eight years in premiums that's numbers I have not seen, but I can tell you I have looked exactly at numbers that calculate off of the legislation here in the House of Representatives, and it would be the $84 a month premium to the 25-year-old man in Indianapolis for example that would triple in cost immediately upon enactment of the bill. This would be a multiplier for a premium of a family of four, age 40, relatively healthy.
Answered on Nov 23rd, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Well, I don't think it's the government's responsibility to balance the market. I don't think government can do that.I'm an Adam Smith type of an economist and as a young man, I poked through his book "Wealth of Nations" and mine I think has 1,057 pages in it. I studied it carefully forward and back and it put me to sleep a lot of nights. But, in the end, I came out of it believing that free market forces are what will save this economy and government cannot manage this, it's got to be supply and demand, it's got to be the invisible hand and we need to get government out of the way.
Answered on Nov 23rd, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
“Yes this administration has done better by any number of objective judgments. One, the people they’ve appointed are better – they’re more qualified. They’ve restructured the office in New Orleans. They have implemented an arbitration panel. They have moved over a billion dollars of projects through the pipeline in a short period of time. So that’s a “yes” they are doing much better. But the answer is still, in my view, “no” this country is not prepared for a catastrophic disaster.
Answered on Nov 5th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
Lynch: As a legislator you mean? Well I supported the recent energy bill which I think will provide huge incentives for green technologies to be developed. It’s pending in the Senate but I understand there’s a willingness at least on part of Senate to take that up. I think it’s a long range bill, this is so called cap and trade, that I think will reduce our reliance on foreign oil. I think that’s the big shift that has to occur for us to make any dent at all in climate change, global warming.
Answered on Nov 5th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
“I don’t have any comment on that.” (Reporter: “…just wanting to get your assessment…?”) [no response]
Answered on Nov 5th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ)
"I don't know. I don’t know. I said I was disappointing and I think given what the situation we are going through with the House it is a mistake for us to go in with a weaker plan in conference. You know I don't have a good explanation as to why. We were at almost 200 plus members that wanted. I wish more would have been done to try to bring those other ten fifteen over. But they held out and Blue Dogs held out and to some extent they had a great deal to say about what we ended up with and it is disappointing to say the least."
Answered on Nov 3rd, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Bill Young (R-FL)
“I don’t think there is a simple answer to that. I think the question is, does that child want to find the natural parents. If the child wants to find the natural parents, I would think they should exhaust any means available to do that, but I am aware of a number of cases where the parent did not want to be reconnected with the natural child. It’s not a yes or no answer.” “Well I had a case… some time ago where a young person who needed a bone marrow transplant because they had leukemia, he had been adopted, and we were able to locate the parent.
Answered on Oct 28th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall II (D-WV)
Rep. NICK RAHALL: No, I think those issues are addressed properly through the current judicial system. Uh, we have a number of cases for example in southern West Virginia that involve lawsuits against coal companies by environmental groups. Uh, they appear to have perfectly legitimate and [assessable/accessable?] access to our courtroom. So no, I’m not in favor of a separate environmental court. I believe the current system works fine.
Answered on Oct 26th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
REPORTER’S NOTE: This question was asked and answered amid a cluster of reporters that followed the Speaker as she walked quickly through a crowded Capitol. This accounts for the occasional bumps and slightly breathless quality in the audio. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): As you may know I visited China in May and had as my guest the Chair of National People’s Congress.
Answered on Oct 26th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Sen. John R. Thune (R-SD)
I think you have to deal with reality and the reality is that there are a lot of evil actors in the world today who continue to acquire nuclear capabilities and some who we think if they have them will use them. It is a great goal. It is a great aspirations but I also think it is constrained by reality and that fact that we live in a dangerous world. I think we have to be very careful we don’t get to a point where we reduce our arsenal and number of delivery vehicles where we aren’t in a position to exercise deterrent that we need to keep some of those bad actors from pulling the trigger.
Answered on Oct 23rd, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ)
Well the listener who recommended that knows what they’re talking about. I’ve been fighting for years now get us to recycle our plastic products. Because the less we put into the ground environmentally we’re better off and it becomes more effectives and efficient. So you better tell your listeners to stay on track. I believe in that.
Answered on Oct 21st, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
Well, everything is always prepared to be discussed, but to be very honest with you, the three things we’re doing is: Health, health, and health.
Answered on Oct 15th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
“So I just think we should let people of America stay on their own plans right now because this so called public option would crowd out everything else very quickly it will be the 800 pound gorilla in the room it will be backed by the people who make all the rules and they will have no incentive to be efficient they will have no responsibility to shareholders or policyholders.”
Answered on Oct 14th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Sen. Jon L. Kyl (R-AZ)
“My area of expertise if I have any in this area is the federal legislation on crime victims now obviously you want to prevent the crime from occurring in the first instance. I focus more on the crime victim side of it I can answer your questions about that but I can’t answers your questions about how tough the laws are or whether they are adequate at the federal level.
Answered on Oct 14th, 2009
