Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Chairman, we have had some discussion about demeaning the House. The lack of intellectual integrity demeans the…”

“Mr. Chairman, we have had some discussion about demeaning the House. The lack of intellectual integrity demeans the House. The bipartisan treatment of what the gentleman from Massachusetts refers to very clearly as institutional matters in a partisan way demeans the House. Mr. Chairman, this is a constitutional issue not just for the United States Senate but for the Congress of the United States and for the House of Representatives, which, under the Constitution of the United States, has primary responsibility for appropriating dollars. It is not the Senate. The Senate cannot initiate appropriation bills or tax bills, as the chairman-to-be of the Committee on Ways and Means knows. Mr. Chairman, the fact of the matter is, and I would hope that all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would take note of this debate, this provision has been in this bill for half a century. When I was chairman of the Committee, the Clinton administration sought to delete this language in 1993 and 1994. I rejected that request and carried it in this bill.”