in the case of vermont, mr. byrdtified that although vermont moved to third party billing, even their there were certain exceptions. it was believed to be convenient for the consumer to be able to have certain services aggregated on a single bill. any kind of examination in this area i think would require some broad understanding of what legitimate businesses rely on this third party billing as a competitive opportunity and a consumer convenience. we try to provide you with more information for the record that i would appreciate that. i think it's important for us to understand that if there is some legitimate purpose, what that would be and what examples are, given the experience we have heard from general madigan, thank you. >> centre mccaskill. >> thank you all for being here today. i would like to place on the record a letter that the committee received from a company that is based in my state, o'reilly four parts. it is quay tail. for 10 years, they realized that they were being victimized by extensive cramming,

in addition to witnesses from illinois and law enforcement to a year from today, i appreciate mr. byrd being here as well. .. and the urgent need to find workable solutions that protect the public, i very much appreciate the work that went into this year-long investigation. i am disappointed that the findings were only released right before the hearing because i would have liked to have heard from our witnesses more of an analysis of what their view also is of the report. so going forward i hope all of you will feel free to augment the record with your purpose -- perspectives on the year-long investigation was conducted by this committee. i appreciate each of the witnesses for sharing their expertise and for helping the committee better understand this issue and as a follow-up to this hearing i also believe it is necessary that we do hear directly from local exchange carriers, aggregators as well as the department of justice who have been prosecuting and imposing fines on those who conducts cramming so that we can hear their perspective on this report and also provide additional inform

mr. byrd, you are recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, i really do not know where to start. i am extremely frustrated about the rhetoric on this issue. we have heard today the accusations of republican plans that will ruin proposals. none of those will come before this committee. none of them. the president has recognized this is an issue that should be talked about and debated. everyone i talk to in north dakota is concerned about social security. i think it has been used as a political football by people with different interests all along. i sit here today and say, well, we have $2.6 trillion. nothing to worry about. the reality is, to redeem those dollars, it comes from the general fund. why are we in this debt crisis? because we have 14 $0.3 million -- we have $14.3 trillion in debt. it is crazy to say we should ignore this problem. i am not here to say we want to use social security to fund our deficit. but quite frankly, it has got to be fixed. we are spending more in the general fund than we are taking in. i came here to

mr. president, and we put our hand on the bible and we swear to uphold the constitution. and i had the honor of serving with senator robert byrd, who most of us here have, and he always carried around this constitution in his pocket. so today i took a look at section 4 of the 14th amendment and do you know what it says? "the validity of the public debt of the united states shall not be questioned." and i swore to uphold this constitution. it says the validity of the public debt of the united states aougt rised by law shall not be questioned. so i'm not going to play games with this. and i'm not going to allow the public debt to become a political football. i want to show you before i leave the floor just a couch more charts -- just a couple of more charts. this is what speaker boehner said july 11. said i'm not interested in a short-term increase on the debt limit. he said our economy won't grow as long as we continue to trip it up with short-term gimmicks from washington. this is what speaker boehner said, so what does he give us, mr. president? a short-term extension of the debt limit a few months. we can't do that, even his