much less of a pot. as i said in answer to earlier questions, if we didn't have the barnett formula, we'd have to come up with some other formula that would distribute money according to need, and we'd have a debate about that. what we have with barnett is a system where if we spend more in england has a consequence for scotland and that leads to the overall level of health spending money that is available in scotland, but, of course, the scottish government has a complete power to spend less than that amount of money, more than that amount of money or the same. it has that choice. and again, sorry to repeat myself. but as you increase the amount of tax and revenue, you increase the relevance of the barnett formula. >> the choice isn't with barnett, it comes geography whether you're living five miles south of the border or north of border. it doesn't fund according to need or deprivation, all those things that have to health seems so unfair. >> that's a good point. what barnett determines is how much block grant goes to scotland and how much stays in england. and then it's up to the

, technically, because the way barnett works, if you decide to spend more money on health care in england, scotland and wales get extra money, and once you devolve income tax, that will be raised and spent in scotland. your point is you increase health spending, that gives scotland more money and they have hadn't to raise taxes to pay for it. i understand the point, i think the only thing i say is if you didn't have barnett, you would have to have another formula for working out how much money to give england and scotland, and it would be a needs based formula, perhaps, and scotland has needs so they would get money for those needs, and barnett has sort of worked in that when you're addressing the needs to spend more money on the health service, it has a consequence in scotland where more money for their health service. i think that way, and also remember, as you devolve tax raising powers, so the importance of barnett gets less because the share of token spending in skocotland would ge smaller. so it's not a perfect answer, but again, we have to sort of get out of the details for a secon

be the top management official at the department of homeland security and nicky barnett has been nominated for another postal service board of governors. i believe ms. saldano and mr. deo will be confirmed i think in short order. i urge my colleagues too review their qualifications and work with dr. coburn and me to fill these vacancies at the department of homeland security in the coming days. i want to spend a few minutes of my time, though, tonight discussing the nomination of mickey barnett to -- who is already serving on the postal board of governors but he's been nominated again, he's a republican, nominated again by the president. and then i want to talk about a couple of lower profile nominees i think we urge lent he opponently need to confirm as quickly as we can. certainly this year during this lame-duck session. mickey barnett. mickey barnett is among a group of five bipartisan nominees to the postal board of governors submitted by a democratic president. two of the nominees republicans, mickey one of those, three of them are democrats. if we don't confirm mr. barnett