weeks, but it's become clearer and clearer as we look hard at judge sotomayor's record and vast experience that attacking this nominee is like throwing rocks at a library. it's unqualed for and it doesn't accomplish anything. her opponents are grasping the straws because it turned out we have before us one of the most qualified, exceptional nominees to come before this senate in recent history. let there be no doubt, sonia sotomayor's nomination to be a justice of the supreme court is a proud moment for america. it is proof that the american dream is in reach for everyone willing to work hard, play by the rules and give back to their communities regardless of their ethnicity, gender or social economic background. let's be clear, we get to be proud of this nominee because

she is exceptionally qualified. we get to be proud because of her vast knowledge of the law. her practical experience fighting crime, and her proven record of dedication to equal justice under the law. those are the reasons we're proud. they're the reason she should be confirmed out delay. we shouldn't be hearing any suggestions that we need indefinitely and infinitely more time to discuss this nomination. it should move just as promptly as the nomination of of john roberts and that's exactly what we're going to do. just a little while ago at a press conference we heard from prominent legal and law enforcement organizations who explained how the people who have actually seen her work know her best, as an exemplary, fair, and highly qualified judge. it came -- they came from our across our country, florida,

texas, nebraska to my home state of new jersey. they shed light on how important her work has been in the fight against crime, how her work as a prosecutor put the tarzan murderer behind bars. how as a judge she upheld the convictions of drug dealers and sexual predators and others and they made it clear she respects the liberties granted by her constitution, including the first amendment rights of people she strongly disagreed with. judge sotomayor's credentials are undeniable. after graduating top of her class at princeton, she became editor at the -- editor of the yale law journal, which many consider to be the best. she won convictions along the way. a republican president, george h.w. bush, appointed her to the

u.s. district court in new york and a democrat, bill clinton, appointed her to the u.s. court of appeals. she was confirmed by a democratic majority senate and then a republican majority senate. her record as a judge is as clear and publicly accessible as any recent nominee. and clearly shows modesty and restraint on the bench. she would bring more judicial experience to the supreme court than any justice in 70 years and more federal judicial experience than anyone in the past century. her record and her adherence to precedent leave no doubt whatsoever that she respects the constitution and the rule of law. judge sotomayor's record made clear she believes what determines a case is not her personal references but he law. her hundreds of decisions prove

conclusively that she looks at what the law says she looks at what congress has said, and she looks above all at what precedent says. she is meticulous about looking at the fact, then decides the outcome in accordance with the constitution. on top of that, judge sotomayor's personal background is rich with the joys and hardships that millions of american families share. her record is proof that someone can both be an impartial ar bitter of the law and still recognize how her decisions will affect people's everyday lives. i think it really says something that the worst her ideological opponents can accuse her of is being able to understand the perspective of a wide range of people whose cases will come before her. judge sotomayor deserves

nothing less than a prompt hearing and prompt confirmation. as the process moves forward, i plan to come back to the floor as often as necessary to rebut any baseless attacks leveled at this judge. it fills me with pride to be able to support president obama's groundbreaking nominee, someone who is clearly the right person far seat on the highest court of the land and it is an enormous joy to be reminded once again that in the united states of america if you work hard, play by the rules and give back to your community, anything is possible. thank you, madam president. with that, i yield the floor. >> live now to the capitol where house republican leader john boehner, joined by republican conference member mike pence and mississippi governor haley barbour talking about government-run health care and its impact on states. >> that's 852 pages that ought

to tell you something, that it's not just tweaking the current program. i do think at the end of the day, that their bill is going to ration care, it's going to raise costs, and it's going to force tens of millions of americans out of their current health care plan into a government-run plan. i believe that house republicans have a better solution, a solution that will preserve the doctor-patient relationship, reduce cost, and increase affordability of health insurance for all americans. governor. >> thank you for inviting me to be here. first, as a governor, i can tell you that states are worried about the idea of the great expansion of medicaid even though the house bill says that it'll all be paid for by the federal government, they also say they're going to make $300 billion of unspecified cuts in order to make that happen. as somebody who deals with

medicaid every day and every governor has to deal with medicaid very often because it is such a difficult issue, it's become such an expensive program, for many states, up to 20% of their state budget, and my state, almost 15% of our state budget, and the savings are not easy to come by. my state legislature has not achieved a budget yet and the two outstanding issues are both medicaid issues. so we governors understand that fooling around with medicaid is a touchy subject. but when you see what is being proposed, my people tell me in mississippi, my medicaid people, that the house bill would result in adding 300,000 mississippians to the medicaid roles that essentially is a 50% increase in the medicaid roles.

we haven't got $50 million more to put into medicaid which is what a 50% increase you would wo -- would cost us. we also don't have any idea how you're going nike the savings to reduce the cost of the program where we could add 300,000 people and it not cost anything. we're very concerned about it. i think a lot of governors, democrats as well as republicans, know that this is a very difficult, very hard subject, that it shouldn't be leaped into. there needs to be a lot of information to the american people, information to state governments, 852 pages is pretty hard to swallow in a short period of time. as an american, beyond my concerns as governor, i think most americans agree with me. my experience with the federal government is, if the government runs something, it usually costs me more and gives me less.

and i think that's what americans are concerned about with an government run health care system, that they'll pay more and get less in terms of coverage, in terms of freedom, in terms of the patient-doctor relationship. we don't need the government rationing health care in the united states. and i think most americans fear that's where this is headed. >> thank you, governor. thank you, leader. delighted to be here. house republicans are committed to bringing health care reform before the congress and before the american people. but as i saw yesterday at a town hall meeting in richmond, indiana. there's -- richmond, indiana, there's profound skepticism among my constituents and i expect among millions of americans, about a vast expansion of the government's role in our health care

economy. house republicans have offered solutions to make health insurance more affordable, more accessible, and more available for those americans who comprise the -- some 45 million uninsured working citizens in this country. but what i heard yesterday at my town hall meeting was profound skepticism about the introduction of a government option to compete with private health insurance companies within this economy. i think most americans know that the government competes with the private sector the way an alligator competes with a duck. it consumes it. the reality is and i saw it on the faces of my constituents, that if, as the president reaffirmed today, if his party heren in congress and his administration introduces a government-run option into our health insurance economy, tens of millions of americans will lose the health insurance that

they currently enjoy. two reasons. their employers will, once they see a government option available, during these very difficult economic times where businesses are struggling just to keep the lights on and doors open, many small business owners and family farmers will simply cancel their health insurance and send their employees to the federal government. secondly, we believe and are very confident, and private estimates suggest that many health insurance companies that are currently in the marketplace today would simply pull that enterprise back and invest in other areas where they weren't directly competing with uncle. sam -- uncle sam. house republicans are committed to bringing reform to our health care economy in this country, but it will be reform built on protecting the doctor-patient relationship and protecting the fundamental integrity of a private health insurance system in this country. >> questions? >> in addition to the 850-page

health care reform, majority leader harry reid said he wanted to move comprehensive immigration reform bill through the senate that includes a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens and a guest worker program. are you interested in moving a similar bill through the house? >> i suggested to a group last week that being in congress this year has been like standing in front of a machine gun. whether it's the stimulus bill, the omnibus appropriations bill, the trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see in the budget, whether it's the proposal on taking over a health care system, a national energy tax, and now somebody is going to suggest we're going to try to do immigration reform in the midst of all this? how much is enough? put me in the doubtful column.

>> [inaudible] >> i think the president did step up his criticism of the iranian regime. i congratulate him for that. we need to keep the pressure on them. >> you don't come from just any state you come from mississippi, one of the poorest states in the country, in the delta you hear tale of folks having egregious health problems, terrible dental health, diabetes, childhood health problems are you proud of the quality of care that poor mississippians are getting under your governorship and what do you think needs to be done to improve that? >> our medicaid policeman is a very pritch -- our medicaid program is a very rich program in terms of what's available to citizens, we have a lot of citizens that need it. we have a lot of low-income citizen, people who are disabled and old. our system makes access to health care very, very easy to

get in mississippi. the number of people on medicaid in my first five years as governor went down. went down for some good reasons. a, medicare part d took some people off medicaid, duel eligibles who no longer need the prescription benefit. secondly we had about 60,000 increase in employment. when you've got 60,000 more people working, a lot of people become ineligible for medicaid because of the right reason they got a job, their kids can get health insurance. now we're starting to see more unemployed, the cost of medicaid going up, the state of mississippi is stepping up to the plate to make sure that people that are becoming eligible for medicaid, that it's available for them. as i say, it is a very good medicaid program and we're going to keep it running just like it's been running.

>> governor barbour, you'll be in new hampshire and iowa this week. when will you make a decision about whether you're going to run for president in 2012. >> probably never -- probably never. governor sununu called me and said he'd like somebody to come up to new hampshire who wasn't running for president to come up to talk about party bills. i told him, i'm your man. >> that means you will not run? >> this is a question on an issue -- energy is coming up this week. i'm wondering if republicans are confident that, you know, you will have less than 10 republicans voting for the bill? >> house republicans are adamantly opposed to a national energy tax that reportedly may be up on the floor of the house this week. the president said in his press conference a little while ago, only the polluters are going to pay. well, let me recount who the polluters might be. how about your electric utility company? and what are they going to do

when then their costs increase? they'll pass it on to the consumers how much about local steel company. a.k. steel happens to be in my district. this tax will put them out of business because imports from china, india, south korea will be able to come here at far less expense than products made here in america. what the president didn't say and didn't talk about were the millions of americans who will lose their jobs because they're in industries that use a lot of energy. and as a result, we'll see those jobs being shipped overseas. this is a very bad idea. >> is that an argument you'll make to keep the number of republicans voting for it very lit snl would you say it's a single digit number? >> you'll have to talk to the whip about that. >> can i say something in answer to this response? about two weeks ago, the southern growth policy board which is a

40-something-year-old economic development, 13-state organization, had a conference on energy and it's not just republicans who are concerned about how the president and the democrats' energy policy will drive up costs. we had three democratic governors there and two of them were very plain spoken about their concern about the cost. their concern about driving coal out of the energy mix which in and of itself will drive up costs significantly. so i think every american should be concerned ability what is the cost going to be to them, their electric bill, the price of gas going in the car, back to $4 gas. but as congressman boehner said, also the loss of jobs, industries will go overseas and the shame of it is, a lot of heavy energy using company, they'll go to brazil or china

or india to produce a ton of coal there, we'll have five times more greenhouse gas emissions than to produce a ton of coal in columbus, mississippi. that's the same of it. that we're going to make the problem worse while saddling the american people with costs that make american energy so much less affordable for american families and businesses. >> thank you all. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> the president's health care plan is making its way through several committees. various committees have oversight over different sections of the legislation. today, senate and house health committees reviewing it, tomorrow the house commerce committee looks at the business aspect while the ways and means committee reviews the tax provisions. you can follow committee coverage at c-span.org.

at 2:30 eastern today, the senate health committee continues going through president obama's health care plan. s the fifth day that the committee is going through the bill line by line and making changes. you can watch live coverage of the markup on c-span3. the house came in this morning, debated five bills and has recessed until 6:30 p.m. eastern time for votes on those bills debated this afternoon. tomorrow, members consider nearly $46 billion for the homeland security department next year budget. that's a 7% increase over this year's spending. also this week, defense department programs and policy, some newspapers reporting that speaker pelosi wants to bring climate change legislation to the floor on friday. live coverage when the house returns here on c-span. >> there's still time to get your copy of c-span's 2009 congressional directory with information on house and senate

members, the cabinet and the nation's governors, plus district maps and how to contact caucuses. it's $16.95, online at c-span.org/products or call 1-877-on-c-span. >> july 4 weekend on book tv, discover an unfamiliar side of our nation's first president as we're live from george washington's mount vernon estate with historian and author john ferling on "the asset of -- the ascent of george washington." >> how is c-span funded? >> through donations? >>ic you get a little bit from the federal government. >> grants and stuff like that. >> maybe from sponsors. >> many -- it might get some government funding. >> viewers. >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span as a public service a private

business initiative. no government mandate, no government money. >> here on c-span at 2:30 eastern time, about 10 minutes in now, we bring you a senate commerce committee hearing on high speed rail with the heads of hamtrack, federal railroad and others. now more of washington journal. guest: host: thank: we want to continue on the topic -- guest: thank you. host: we have a tweed that says that when one could not pay for it, one used to just die. we have a call from maryland. good morning. caller: and sews or a did not get a chance to speak with linda douglass. i am in diabetic and i have

kidney problems. i was beginning to have liver problems and eye problems, all kinds of problems. diabetes is a most monstrous of diseases. i wrote a letter and sent it to michelle and barack obama on march 17 and i have not heard anything of to now, nearly the end of june. and i know kathleen sebelius, but she was just appointed about a month and a half ago. i'm so glad that you had linda douglass on because i wanted her to go and look for my letter. how can i get her direct number or e-mail or fax number? host: you can call the white house. by the way, you can go to whitehouse.gov. @@@@@@@@ tt tt

we're talking about the white house health care plan, raleigh is joining us. caller: i am on vacation. i don't want people to think a federal employee son the phone talking while they should be working. i want to clear that up. but my question is, what makes the federal government think that it has the right to pay for all americans to have affordable health care when a, they can't even do it for their own employees? federal government is the largest employer in the country, but yet every year for the last 10 years or more, federal employees' insurance costs, including co-pays and premiums have gone up by 10% or more. secondly, if the american public thinks the federal government can run a federal health system, just look at our military's health care. when the government can show

the public that it can take care of its own employees's health care and costs and its own military health care in a more efficient manner, then i think they should propose something to the american public to buy. host: thanks to the call. from tehran this story in the "wall street journal," as protests in iran diminish amid security crackdown two. things we want to point out from the peace. mr. mousavi did not appear in public on monday but he posted a state optometrist supporters in his website. it says, the country belongs to you, protests lies and fraud is your right. britain, which iran's supreme leader called evil, said it was evacuating the families of diplomats in iran.

iranian state media reported the country's raferse started a low-altitude bombing exercise over the persian gulf and sea of oman. they said the unrest hadn't affected the country's oil output or crude exports. next a call from lee from alabama. caller: let me read something briefly out of one of the local newspapers, the "tribune" here in marshall county. it was on the front page, these are biweekly newspapers, it says national health care network has singled out marshall medical centers north and south for being the top 1% of hospitals nationwide. these are great hospitals up here, but my point is, i sure wish i could have got in the discussion with him, we pay -- we have blue cross and blue shield insurance which is -- we have the best, which is, we

don't pay anything up front, and it's $304.12 a month. that's $3,600.49 a year. the employer pays $500. it's $600. -- $6,000. total price is $9,600.88. and incidentally it also pays some dental. this think that's just come out from the senate and house, the -- where they have come up wan estimate and said on -- based on 36 million people, which i think a third of those are illegal, but at any rate that would give you 15,667,000.

host: you have these numbers down. caller: averaging $70,000 a person. $70,000 a person. now in how in god's name is that going to beat the public insurance -- private insurance? host: i appreciate the call. health care and the situation in north korea, iran, and the obama administration we'll be asking with bob schieffer, you can send him a tweet if you'd like, wool find out if he's tweeting. sylvia is on the phone from broken arrow, oklahoma. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i am so happy once again i'm eligible to talk about what is going on in our world today and all around the

globe. my question is, is that how is this health care plan going to affect the medicare and medicaid patients around the world? some that cannot even afford to pay the co-payment like wal-mart, i'm going to say, $4 and then at walgreen's which is the best, i believe, maybe $1.10. looking at tv last night and i heard about -- i seen on tv that there was some incentives about getting some of this money back. and some of the providers that help you with paying some of those payments. but how is this going help? where is medicare going fall at? are they going to get rid of medicare or some of the things that you can't pick your own doctor? >> thanks, sylvia.

tony blakely, who joined us thursday on "journal," his article today, his take -- even obama's supporters claim the honeymoon is over. we have this, the insurance industry claims they can't survive if they compete with a public option, if they do such a poor job, they should go. carolyn is on the line. caller: i'm in the hospital. host: i'm in for breathing problems, i had a very bad attack with my lungs and i've been here since saturday. host: how are you feeling? caller: not really good right now, a little better. i realize my department of defense insurance, issued to me because my husband is a disabled veteran, 100% disabled