Peter Roskam: “I really do appreciate that gesture and his concern for how we're feeling. But the good news for Mr. Rangel is, we don't…”

“I really do appreciate that gesture and his concern for how we're feeling. But the good news for Mr. Rangel is, we don't feel embarrassed, and this isn't awkward. In fact, it is with a sense of duty that we stand up and say, You know what, this bill is a classic underperformer. If you notice something, we're hearing echoes of the exact same rhetoric that we heard during the stimulus debate. The stimulus, as you will remember, was $750 billion, plus or minus, plus interest, so you are at a trillion dollars worth of commitment and a stampede argument of spending that said, If we would only do this now, only do this quick, only do this right now, unemployment was going to peak at 8 percent. Well, that didn't happen in my home State of Illinois. In fact, The Chicago Tribune recently quoted a civic leader, the Civic Federation of Chicago, and this is what they said regarding the State of Illinois' budget morass, notwithstanding all the help that the majority has claimed that they've foisted on these States. They've said, This is historic. It is epic. It is impossible to overstate the level of peril.”