David Skaggs: “we hear an awful lot about wanting to reduce taxes and everybody would love to lower taxes. But do we really think that…”

“we hear an awful lot about wanting to reduce taxes and everybody would love to lower taxes. But do we really think that reasonable, rational, serious-minded Members of future Congresses will be likely to reduce taxes in times when we have budget surpluses and are able responsibly to do so knowing full well that if times go bad and there were need, again, to balance the budget with increased revenues, that it would take two-thirds then to do so? It is no wonder, Mr. Speaker, that when the House was constrained by its own rule requiring a three-fifths supermajority to deal with this same issue, it waived that rule repeatedly, to balance the budget, to reform welfare, to preserve Medicare, to extend health care coverage, and increase deductions for small business. But if this supermajority requirement were in the Constitution rather than in the House rules, we could not have waived it, and we could not have passed those bills. One thing we can be very sure of, we do not know what the future holds. Why would this Congress wish to deprive our successors of the tools and ability to deal with future problems? How arrogant is it of us to say to our successor Members of Congress: We do not care what may be the problems that you face. We are so certain today that you will be incompetent to exercise good judgment in the future that we will make sure that you are deprived of the ability to do so through majority rule.”