Political Quotes

“Here is a new piece of historic information just in about James Madison that may appeal to my colleagues. Actually, they tried a supermajority, and I think they will all find this very interesting. Because under the Articles of Confederation in the 1780s, there was a provision for a supermajority. Adopting a supermajority tax requirement would repeat the very same mistakes made in the 1780s under the Articles of Confederation between the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of a constitution. Under these articles, it required a vote of nine of the 13 States to raise revenue, a supermajority. It is because the system worked so poorly that the Founding Fathers sought to fashion a national government that could operate through majority rule. So, Mr. Speaker, we would be ignoring a very important fundamental part of our history if we were to give in this area James Madison too hard a way to go. In fact, in the present circumstances, this amendment would take more votes to close a tax loophole engineered by powerful interest groups than to cut Social Security, Medicare and education programs.”