Neil Abercrombie: “I rise, kind of incredulous about the idea that this is now a policy. The policy is, if I understand it correctly…”

“I rise, kind of incredulous about the idea that this is now a policy. The policy is, if I understand it correctly, especially according to the gentleman from California who spoke a moment ago, the policy is that we are going to have a tax cut in order to pay our electric bill. Mr. Speaker, I suggest, and I am sure the gentleman who just spoke will be in favor of this, we want to cut out bureaucracy and the middle man. Why not give the money directly to the energy companies? Why not have a direct deposit at Exxon or a direct deposit at the oil production companies or the electric generators? The gentleman from California who just spoke, my good friend, let us do that. Cut out the middle man. Forget the fact that we owe $1.1 trillion to the Social Security fund. Forget the fact that we owe Medicare $229 billion, and that we owe the military retirees $162 billion. Forget about drawing down the debt. I thought that is what we were going to do. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues over here were the ones that helped convince us that getting rid of the deficit and paying down the debt is something that we needed to do. Let us put some rationality behind this. Let us pass the tax cut. Let us have a direct deposit at the oil companies, at the energy companies. Let us cut out the middle man and the bureaucracy. Let us cut out the American people.”