schumer: thank you, mr. president. i rise in strong, vehement opposition to the a amendment offered -- to the amendment offered by the minority leader to repeal the health care reform law. i would say to my good friend from nevada, yes, we would like to work together to further reduce costs. but this bill does reduce costs significantly. the c.b.o. has said in no uncertain terms that the appeal would balloon the deficit by more than a trillion in the second decade. the law smokes out a good deal of the waste, the inefficiency, the duplication that we all know is part of our system. and that is the place where we have to continue to work together. our country delivers the best health care in the world, but it's also the most inefficient. we spend 17% of our g.d.p. on health care. the next highest spending country is only 10%. under the reform law, we will begin the first large step in keeping quality care, but getting the costs under control. now, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, you know, you're ri

schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: thank you. i, too, want to join in the accolades for our senator from west virginia, senator manchin. he is just one fine guy. i got to know him when he was governor and then campaigning. and he is doing a wonderful job here already. to have passion about where you come from is a noble thing. i think the great poets from greek times on have written that. and nobody has more passion about where he comes from and his roots than senator manchin, than joe man chifnlt and you can see it and feel it in everything he does, as we could in this speech today. and so i, too, want to join in thanking him for coming here. america needs his perspective and his wisdom. and i know he will make a greater senator and we're already great friends, and soy thank him here. i would also like to compliment my cleelg, the senior senator from west virginia, as we will. senator rockefeller, for his kind remarks. he's a great leader. joe and i have talked about how you can't go wrong watching and imitating and emulating se

schumer: thank you, mr. president. i rise in strong, vehement opposition to the a amendment offered -- to the amendment offered by the minority leader to repeal the health care reform law. i would say to my good friend from nevada, yes, we would like to work together to further reduce costs. but this bill does reduce costs significantly. the c.b.o. has said in no uncertain terms that the appeal would balloon the deficit by more than a trillion in the second decade. the law smokes out a good deal of the waste, the inefficiency, the duplication that we all know is part of our system. and that is the place where we have to continue to work together. our country delivers the best health care in the world, but it's also the most inefficient. wepend 17% of our g.d.p. on health care. the next highest spending country is only 10%. under the reform law, we will begin the first large step in keeping quality care, but getting the costs under control. now, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, you know, you're righ

senator schumer and i have been working on this issue for some time and i appreciate very much his input and his counsel in taking this approach and i appreciate the support of the additional -- those additional sponsors as well as the chair, who is one of those sponsors. by creating a deterrent and establishing criminal penalties for those who take and distribute body scan images inappropriately, we'll help protect the american people's privacy while making sure we're using every resource available to try and assure their safety at the same time. this is not an an tract -- abstract concern. there's always been a case -- already been a case where these images, some 30,000 of them, have been taken and posted, some of them on-line inappropriately. so it's my hope that this amendment and the other cosponsors will have prevent that from occurring again. madam president, by including this amendment this the f.a.a. reauthorization, we're simply telling our constituents that we will not ignore their privacy in the process of making sure we have safe airports and federal buildings. that's what t

[laughter] [applause] chuck schumer told me having a press conference every single day is just a good start. [laughter] and john ensign told me i should get to know my staff really well. [laughter] [applause] be on the senate, everyone has been so nice to meet. tim pawlenty, new gingrich, haley barbour, you know, they have all offered to come to new hampshire and shuffled my driveway. [laughter] and mitt romney has been very nice, too. he invited me to a reading from the paperback release of his book, no apology, the case for american greatness. it is a sequel to his other book. i apologize, i was governor of massachusetts. [laughter] my husband joe and i get invited to a lot of these events as you can imagine, and for those of you that don't know him, he piloted combat missions in the war in iraq and he is my hero. he has been so supportive and he's had to put up so much as you can imagine with his wife running for the senate. people here in washington keep coming up to joe and congratulating him on his victory. and he put his arm around me and says i couldn't have done it without th