Jerry Moran: “If I might suggest to my colleague from Texas, we are not suggesting that our colleagues need to be physics majors but…”

“If I might suggest to my colleague from Texas, we are not suggesting that our colleagues need to be physics majors but they ought to be responsible legislators, particularly when we are attempting to change the Constitution of the United States. We ought to know the definition of some of the terms. You just threw out the idea that de minimis means $1.5 billion. Does that mean annually, or does that mean if you raise $1.5 billion over 5 years or 7 years or 10 years? None of these answers are evident. Also, user fees, we are talking about going to a system where we can have user fees for bridges and for roads and for national parks and the like. Are user fees included here? If you read the language of the legislation we were given, the constitutional amendment, certainly they are because that is internal revenue being generated. I do not think we ought to be, as I suggested, treating the Constitution as some kind of working draft that we can amend as the notion comes to us, either on the floor of the House or even in committee or in any personal way. What we ought to be doing is enabling all the Members of this body to understand fully the consequences of their actions. We have that responsibility, and that is not the responsibility of a nuclear physicist but it certainly is the responsibility of a Member of the House of Representatives.”