Cliff Stearns: “At least. So I think that this is a fair example of why we need to have this tax limitation amendment. Benjamin Franklin…”

“At least. So I think that this is a fair example of why we need to have this tax limitation amendment. Benjamin Franklin did say, as the gentleman from Texas said, that in the end it is all death and taxes; but the problem is, he goes on to say that this is a dead idea. Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, they have passed this; Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington. So these are States that believe in this concept, and I think it is a time that has come to this House, just like the balanced budget amendment and like welfare reform. I remember this side of the aisle saying, oh, no, we cannot have welfare reform. We cannot have immigration reform. We cannot have balanced budget reform. When we look at our Constitution, we have had lots of amendments to try and improve it. In this case, a simple two-thirds vote by both the House and Senate for taxes is extremely important, because most Americans today are paying almost 40 percent of their income for taxes. In 1941, Federal taxes were 6.7 percent of the gross domestic product. During the 1960s, Federal taxes approached as much as 20 percent. So we need to set in place a system that we cannot have taxes without a supermajority, and of course, in the Constitution we had this supermajority standard for amending the Constitution, impeaching the President, ratifying international treaties.…”