Mark Souder: “the question is: Why are we here particularly today in addition to it being tax day? When the Republicans took over…”

“the question is: Why are we here particularly today in addition to it being tax day? When the Republicans took over Congress in January of 1995, the first major legislative vote for me as a Member of Congress was the first item of the Contract with America. A significant number of Members in the class of 1994 were very concerned because that balanced budget amendment had this particular clause taken out. The protection against tax increases, that had been part of our Contract with America. We at that point in our first legislative vote developed our reputation as a bunch of troublemakers in this House. As part of that compromise, we were promised that, on April 15, we would have the opportunity, thanks to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), who then worked with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) who had been a champion of this long before we got here, who worked out with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the majority leader, who had always been a leading tax cutter, that we would have the opportunity to point this out to the American people on this day. Although I still voted against that balanced budget amendment for this reason, a balanced budget will not work unless we have tax protections, because if we can increase taxes, we can balance a budget superficially because it will look like we are raising revenue the first year, but in fact it will continue to contract.…”