[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2001]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      WHERE IS REPUBLICAN OUTRAGE?

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we and the 
American public found out that the Bush administration once again has 
not been telling us the truth about the cost of the Medicare 
prescription drug benefit. It now appears it is going to cost over a 
trillion dollars. When they debated it on the floor of Congress, they 
said it was going to cost $300 billion, and at the same time, of 
course, the administration and the Republican leadership kept the 
people from coming forward with the real information that they thought 
it was going to cost $600 billion.
  Now it is over a trillion dollars. Where is the Republican outrage? 
Where is the Republican commitment to balance budgets and fiscal 
responsibility? No, they have instead chosen to lower their voices.
  I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that those Members 
with independent voices in the Republican Caucus lost their positions. 
Those who had independent voices on the Committee on Standards of 
Official Conduct and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs lost their 
chairmanship and their positions. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith) who spoke out independently on behalf of America's veterans lost 
his chairmanship and even his position on that committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I wonder what has happened to those independent voices 
for the good of this Nation and the Republican Party.

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