David Skaggs: “let me just say in concluding, I think there are a couple of things we can be sure of or at least we ought to allow to…”

“let me just say in concluding, I think there are a couple of things we can be sure of or at least we ought to allow to humble us. One is our inability to predict the future. Why in the world we would want to deprive our successors in the body of their ability to deal in the future with one of the most complicated and nuanced subjects that we ever face around here, namely the tax code, deprive them of their ability or make them basically the captive of 34 Senators and their inability to deal with that subject is beyond me. In effect, we are saying to those that are going to come after us in this Congress, we do not care what the particular circumstances may be that you are going to face in 10 to 20 years. We simply do not trust the majority of you to exercise your judgment to carry out the will of the then-majority of American citizens. Our expectation is that you are going to be incompetent to do that, that you have got to have two-thirds. Mr. Speaker, that seems to me to be a very arrogant and presumptuous act for us to take. It also, as the gentleman from Virginia has pointed out, ignores our history, and one of the things that is for me most profound about the honor of serving here is our job as carrying the legacy of the brilliant people who drafted the Constitution and set up our system of Government and who did so because the supermajority requirements of the Articles of Confederation were wholly dysfunctional.”