Charles Rangel: “Mr. Speaker, let me join in with the gentleman from Pennsylvania in trying to work to eliminate this burden that has…”

“Mr. Speaker, let me join in with the gentleman from Pennsylvania in trying to work to eliminate this burden that has been placed on people that it was never intended to penalize. But, Mr. Speaker, before we can work together on this issue, the issue has to come before our committee. Is that not a novel idea, a tax bill coming before the Committee on Ways and Means? Why is it that we yield our authority, our jurisdiction to the Committee on Rules? Is this not something that should not be a partisan issue? Is this bill, this AMT, not adversely affecting Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives? Why do we have to, in the middle of the night, shift this over to the Committee on Rules and then come to the House floor and say we want to spend $167 billion to go into debt but we only want to do it for 1 year? That is truly unfair. Why do you give away tax relief for the marriage penalty and then take it back away with the alternative minimum tax? Why do we have this sloppy way to develop a Tax Code that is so complicated that it takes hours for people to try to get the benefits that we say we are giving to them? So what I am saying to my friend from Pennsylvania, please do not tell us how you have got to struggle to make this permanent. Tell us how we can get the jurisdiction back in the Committee on Ways and Means.”