On the recordFebruary 8, 2012
I thank the gentleman from Texas for his words. I just want to hark back to what the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) said, who's in opposition to the bill, but he did make clear that in his opinion this bill is constitutional. I really think we should put that question aside. As the chairman of the committee has pointed out on several occasions, Congress gets the last word on this issue. Congress gets an up-or-down majority vote. We're simply requiring that Congress take a vote on savings that the President recommends for the taxpayer. We believe we should do that in the light of day. It's a small step. It's a little curious to hear one of the solutions offered from some of the folks opposed to this bill is to give the President even more authority. On the one hand they say, well, we shouldn't do this because you're giving the President too much leverage. The amendment they mention, of course, would give the President even more leverage over tax expenditures and mandatory spending, so I'm a little puzzled there. Where I do agree with them is that if we're going to get a hold on this deficit situation, we've got to deal with mandatory spending as well, and we've got to deal with the revenue side of the equation--tax expenditures. And the bipartisan commissions, Simpson-Bowles, Rivlin- Domenici, all of them presented a more bipartisan framework for doing that.…
