Henry Waxman: “I thought that having this bill up today would be a useless exercise, but I think it is quite valuable in light of the…”

“I thought that having this bill up today would be a useless exercise, but I think it is quite valuable in light of the comments that the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] has made about how we need to cut back on spending in areas where we are spending too much. I also want to point out that if we look at some of those higher income Americans who are going to get a huge tax break, rather than find July 3 as their tax independence day, some of them are going to celebrate on Valentine's Day, because at that point they will have paid all they are going to pay in for the Government funding for all of these different services, while a lot of hard-working Americans, especially middle-income Americans, will continue to pay on into the months to the summertime.”