Rich Neal: “I ask rhetorically one question on this issue: why would anybody not want to repeal this tax? And then I thought about…”

“I ask rhetorically one question on this issue: why would anybody not want to repeal this tax? And then I thought about it and I came to the conclusion, with 4 teenage children, maybe I am wrong. Do we really want to encourage them to stay on the phone longer? But even after that, I have come down on the side of repeal, primarily because changing technology, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) has pointed out, will make the collection of this tax more and more difficult and digital technology will continue to blur the lines between audio, video, and tech transmissions. In the coming era, we will ask ourselves what will define telephone service. It is a bad tax, and we have an opportunity to get rid of it. Mr. Speaker, let me shift gears for a second to stand in support of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) who is going to speak in a few minutes. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s after Watergate, the American people recoiled in their anger at the idea that in the basement of the White House there were suitcases full of cash, unacknowledged by the donors, and we are headed down the road to that same practice unless we do something about the idea of disclosing who gives what. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) is right on target, and to my friends on the Republican side and my colleagues on the Democratic side, these groups are bipartisan political assassins. We should know where their money comes from.”