Jeff Flake: “Mr. Speaker, it is funny how politics changes very little over the years. More than 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, in a…”

“Mr. Speaker, it is funny how politics changes very little over the years. More than 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, in a speech for Barry Goldwater, what I consider the best speech ever given said, ``This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self government, or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.'' I guess I am now part of that little intellectual elite in Washington, but I can tell my colleagues that I have had no epiphany or no revelation over the past 2 years that tells me how to spend people's money better than they can spend it themselves. That is why I and all of my Republican colleagues and 28 of our Democrat colleagues supported the legislation last year to cut taxes. Now it is incumbent on us to make it permanent. If we truly believe that Americans can spend their money better than we can spend it for them, then we will support this measure to make the tax cuts permanent.”