i now yield four minutes to our distinguished whip, mr. steny hoyer from the proud state of maryland. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland is recognized for four minutes. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for yielding. the previous speaker voted to go deeply into debt. frankly, i voted for some of those programs myself. two of which were to support the efforts in afghanistan and iraq. we didn't pay for them. as has been said, i didn't vote for it initial, but i think it's a -- initially, but i think it's a good program. we made it better. the prescription drug program, the gentleman wasn't here when we passed that, but we didn't pay for it. and he's correct, it doesn't matter which side didn't pay for it. we haven't paid for it. this bill is about whether or not we're going to stand up and say, yes, we voted to pay for it but, guess what, we have our fingers crossed. we're not going to do it. we said we were going to do this. we took some tough action.