John Joseph Moakley: “But the gentleman from Colorado will agree that the Speaker said he is not going to allow the minimum wage to come to…”

“But the gentleman from Colorado will agree that the Speaker said he is not going to allow the minimum wage to come to the floor, so will the gentleman tell me how else we can get it to the floor? The fact is he knows and I know this is a sneak attack. That is all right, we can take it, we can absorb it. But if our colleagues want to talk about minimum wage, if the gentlewoman from Connecticut wants to talk about minimum wage, why does she not talk about the tax vote she took? Why do our colleagues not talk about the tax vote we took just 2 weeks ago where we said to the country and to the bureaucracy in Washington, DC: Before you raise taxes on the American people, you ought to get a two-thirds vote. Now a lot of States do that. There are a lot of States that require a balanced budget. I would be interested to see what the gentleman from Texas or the gentlewoman from Connecticut voted on the balance budget amendment. Do my colleagues really want to help the working people of this country? Then put this argument aside, let us debate the rules and the germaneness, and I mean argue what is germane to this rule, and let us get this budget, this agreement which cuts spending by $23 billion; we can have that to the President's desk within 24 hours.”