Pete Stark: “Mr. Speaker, I could not begin to match the eloquence of the previous speakers on this side who would suggest to the…”

“Mr. Speaker, I could not begin to match the eloquence of the previous speakers on this side who would suggest to the American public that they are at grave risk of having their Constitution damaged by a capricious majority who would today--in kind of a television stunt that is hardly worthy of a second rate talk show host--try and convince the American people that they are doing something to save them money or to save the Government. It is again a sham. There is much that we could be doing in this body that is important, and obviously we are not. But it is important to note what might have happened had this kind of a silly constitutional amendment been agreed upon earlier. Social Security would now be bankrupt. It would not have been saved in the 1984 legislation which did not receive a two-thirds vote. As the Republicans have repeatedly tried to raise the taxes on the senior citizens for Medicare in their own rule which required two-thirds last year, they had to waive the rule to increase the premiums on Medicare beneficiaries. That was a Republican move. The health coverage availability and affordability bill would have imposed additional taxes on withdrawals from medical savings accounts, an equally silly idea, but again the Republicans had to waive their own rule. The Republicans could not operate, they do not know how to operate the House with a two-thirds rule they have in here now.”