three outstanding members of congress, bobby scott, jim moran, and jerry conrad. thank you for the great job you do every day. there are all kinds of things valerie was explaining. don't worry. she's in charge. so she will organize this. i just want to give a few remarks at the outset and then we will save most of the time for questions. first, it's wonderful to be here. i'm looking forward to answering questions about what is one of the most important issues facing american families, american businesses, and the american government. before i begin, i want to say a few words about where we are as a nation. and where we need to go. we are living through extraordinary times. i don't need to tell you that. this generation of americans, our generation has been called to confront challenges of a magnitude that we have not seen in decades, perhaps unlike anything we have seen in recent history. challenges that you generations of americans are asked to face. in a daddition to the immediate threats, we have two wars going on at a deep recession, our economy has also been

[applause] and three outstanding members of congress, bobby scott, jim moran, gerry connolly. thank you so much for the great job you do every day. [applause] i know there is all kinds of stuff that valerie was explaining. don't worry. she is in charge, so she will organize this. i want to give a few remarks at the outset, and then we will save most of the time for questions. first of all, it is wonderful to be here in annandale. i am looking forward to answering questions about what is obviously one of the most important issues facing american families, american businesses, and the american government. but before i began, i just want to say a few words about where we are as a nation. and where we need to go. we are living through extraordinary times. i don't need to tell

the floor a legislation by barren hill, george miller, who else is a co-chair, peter welch and bobby scott. , the democratic caucus adopted, we thank you for your leadership, we are all committed to fiscal soundness, we thank them. >> can you tell us what the total estimate is, give us a couple examples of where you change the bill from a few weeks ago? >> one of the things we had concern with, the adversity that exists throughout this great country, people have different needs, different ways of providing health care and not all of it appears to be equitable. as the deep interest and concern that some members have, we directed they would be, an investigation, a study to see where the best medicine is being given in the most efficient way, the most efficient price, we set aside $10 billion to make sure -- take care of any inequity that exists that would be handled by the federal administration. many reforms, as a result of this, in the bill, people didn't know where to find them. we had to bring those together and the lot of people in small business, we are able to change the threshold, to

pastor: i would like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from virginia, bobby scott. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. scott: i would like to briefly discuss the importance of fully funding the thomas jefferson's labs upgrade this received accelerated funding in the recovery act and it's vital it receive the administration's full request of $22 million in this bill. the full funding is not in place for the upcoming fiscal year due to stringent controls in how recovery act funds are spent. there is little way for them to meet the deadline of the project without delays. i hope the gentleman from arizona will work work -- will work with me and mr. wittman to ensure the project is funding for fiscal year 2010 and i yield to the gentleman from virginia, my colleague, mr. wittman. mr. wittman: thank you, mr. scott. i rise in support and echo the comments of mr. scott. the lab is currently in a major upgrate. fully funding the accelerator upgrade will expand the research potential and lead to a greater understand og of atomic parols. research -- particles. it will

and i feel like it was bobby who saw how wrong some of the things that african-americans endured were. and right at the end of the campaign, you know, they made a call -- coretta scott king called the campaign and her husband had just been put in jail. and she was literally worried for his life. and she asked them if there was anything they could do. and bobby was really in charge of the campaign. and they were worried that bobby would say no because they felt like if they embraced this cause, of black activism it might upend the campaign and so john and a couple others, harris lawford being one of them on the sly called up and reassured -- and john reassured coretta scott king that they would try to do something to get him out of jail, get martin luther king out of jail. they did it to help them win the campaign it seems like more than embracing the cause but bobby found out about it and went ballistic because he thought if it got out, it would just ruin their chances with sort of mainstream americans at the time. but then bobby sort of thought about it and thought about it and what made him angry was the judge that put martin luther king in jail more than what joh