I'm not going to attack or defend the fund that you've described, Bucco. I simply don't know much about it. And I'm not going to assert that $8 billion is an insignificant sum. But there probably should be some perspective...

• $8.3 billion is only slightly more than 1% of the annual Medicare budget.

• $8.3 billion is about .2% of the entire federal budget.

I guess I might suggest that there are a lot more egregious examples of the politicizing of federal government spending...and there has been for many, many years by politicians from both political parties. That doesn't excuse such conduct. But it really is nothing new.