mrs. mccaskill: they have had made a fortune on the backs of taxpayers. mr. durbin: those who formed some type of competitive bidding, some type of government buying in bulk to reduce costs were defeated. mrs. mccaskill: that is my recollection, senator, that in that bill they even outlawed the ability of the government to negotiate for lower prices based on volume. that's good business practices. make sure that we can't get a good deal based on how many drugs we're going to buy. we can't even lower the cost of this big government massive government entitlement program, not paid for, by negotiating for lower prices. they outlaw that in this bill. mr. durbin: as the senator from missouri made clear, this cost over $400 billion. and many republican senators, including the senator who objected to unemployment benefits for the millions of people in america out of work, voted for this program unpaid for. now they tell us that we can't extend unemployment benefits to people in kentucky and illinois and missouri because we haven't fade for them. clearly a double sta

mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator collins. senator lieberman is next, and then assuming nobody else comes in, senator mccaskill would be next and then senator reid. senator lieberman? >> thanks, mr. chairman. i opposed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it was created by this committee in 1993, and i remain opposed to it today and therefore i support repealing it as soon as possible. my feelings to state it simply then was that what mattered most was not how a member of the military lived his or her private sexual life, but that they were prepared to risk their lives in defense of our country. my judgment was that in a combat situation, a member of the military in a tank or an mrap today is going to care a lot more about the capability and courage of the soldier next to him than they are about the sexual orientation of that soldier, just as over the years as senator burris referred to, they came to care a lot less ant the race -- a lot less about the race of the soldier next to them and more about the courage of the person next to them. i am grateful that the president supports the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." i than

mccaskill. senator reid. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, i want to follow up on the point that senator collins made, because it is my understanding that canada and the united kingdom have allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly in the case of canada since the early '90s and in great britain 2000, and they are fighting side-by-side with us in afghanistan and in fact, i would think that we would like to see more of their regimens and brigades there. does that, i think suggest as admiral mullen mentioned before that the combat effectiveness is not m pai m impair and we hav opportunity to work with them in joint operations, and does that add credibility or weight to the discussions that you are undertaking? >> well, it is clearly something that we need to address. with knee to we need to talk to those countries in the military formal and in depth way about their experience. i believe that their experience is a factor, but i also would say that each country has its own culture and its own society, and it has to be evaluated in those

mr. chairman, i think i would like to reserve 44 seconds for the next round so mccaskill on the question. >> you may even have longer than 44 seconds. senator rockefeller. >> senator grassley, you were actually just 31 seconds. [laughter] >> he's a good man, we will give him more. >> that's true. that's true. a secretary geithner, i want to go right to coal in the energy part of the budget. let me just say this colin grow i come from state of west virginia that has a hostile attitude toward any changes in current practices with coal. which is against cap-and-trade and any change at all. not in all cases. i am trying to change that and this budget is going to make it hard for me. let me explain. ç abouti] 6.7% of its electricity. q coal gives itçóç about 85%. but you gotç all kinds of tax credit elimination's in about coal, which come out of the meeting in pittsburgh of the g- 20, and i understand that. but also don't really believe that china and india are going to be part of that. çóso on top of thatç, a relatiy small thing but a nettlesome thing, you shift costsw3 of osm onto the co