Barney Frank: “I want to start in a spirit of bipartisanship with congratulations. I congratulate the chairman of the Committee on…”

“I want to start in a spirit of bipartisanship with congratulations. I congratulate the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations on the restraint he says he showed in not having Members individually send out the checks to the constituents. It might have been a violation of the separation of powers. I admire his doing that. Until he just smiled, I was going to congratulate the gentleman from New Hampshire for keeping a very straight face during this entire proceeding. Were I he, I could not have done so. I welcome this in some ways. Let us be clear what we are talking about. It is a letter that begins not with telling you that it is not taxable or how it was calculated, but by telling you that this is a present to you from George Bush. It comes to you from George Bush and the Congress. Now, I in one sense must tell you for self-interests welcome this. For some time I have been distressed that politically self-serving mail is known as 'franked' mail. I have been upset to be a synonym with the use of taxpayer money to send out blatantly self-serving mail. But, from now on, that mail will no longer be thought of primarily as franked mail. It will be 'bushed' mail; not bush mill, bushed mail, because the $30 million in this one fell swoop will be a greater exploitation of the taxpayer's money for political purposes than ever before.”