David Skaggs: “one further point I think needs to be made on this. During the debate on opening day, it was touted that this rules…”

“one further point I think needs to be made on this. During the debate on opening day, it was touted that this rules change was remedial in nature. It was to be viewed expansively as remedying a propensity of the House that needed to be curtailed. A narrow reading such as is advocated by the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means a few minutes ago flies in the face of all of the advocacy, the legislative history, if you will, of this rules change, which is the only basis that the House has and that the Chair has for informing a ruling. To take a provision that was intended to be remedial, and therefore viewed expansively, and interpret it narrowly belies the absurdity of the rules change to begin with. If we raise taxes on people but we do it in a sneaky, kind of back-door way of doing it, that, Mr. Speaker, if we do it in a legislatively, carefully crafted way, we can get away with it. If we can find some way parliamentarily to swing around it, whatever the effect on people is does not make any difference.”