Charles Rangel: “Mr. Speaker, few people in the country and a lot of people in the House of Representatives are unaware as to what this…”

“Mr. Speaker, few people in the country and a lot of people in the House of Representatives are unaware as to what this procedure is in terms of going to conference. Civics 101 would dictate that the House and Senate conferees are trying to come out in a conference in working out their differences so that we can send a tax cut bill to the President of the United States for his consideration so that it would become law. Yet, Mr. Speaker, nobody in the House or the Senate, no Democrats or Republicans, truly believe that anybody believes the President is going to sign such a bill. This thing rushed through the Committee on Ways and Means in 1 day. And why? Because it was already prepackaged. We already had an offer from the majority that we had to refuse. A similar thing occurred in the Senate. So this evening we meet for the first time. Do we really meet to work out our differences in order to have a tax cut bill? No. We meet to see how Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate can fashion a bill to such an extent that they know that the President of the United States will have to veto it. And so instead of talking as legislators, instead of talking as tax writers, we are having a political meeting to determine the campaign for the year 2000. Chairman Greenspan had indicated that he thought it would be best for the economy for us just to take a deep breath, to do nothing.”