Charles Rangel: “if I could have a statement today on this rule which I oppose, it would be to my dear friend and fellow New Yorker (Mr.…”

“if I could have a statement today on this rule which I oppose, it would be to my dear friend and fellow New Yorker (Mr. Solomon). Because the gentleman from New York is leaving this great body, but he leaves with a great reputation as a feisty fighter for all of the things that he has believed in all of his life as a true American and a true Marine. I feel awkward, because having moved to be the senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means, some of the ways I used to think have now been replaced by having the responsibility of not being able to express my liberal ways the way I used to enjoy them before. I would believe that if a surplus was there, spend the darn thing. Put it in education, build some houses, let America's quality of life be a little better. As far as Social Security is concerned, what the devil. If we do not have money for the check, the country is not there, anyway, so forget it. But that is not the way Americans have been thinking. The Republicans have been so good at telling us if you do not have the money, you do not spend it. They have been so good in saying you pay as you go. They have been so good in saying that we have got budget rules, that you cannot even do it without violating the very principles of the House. Yet this rule today would allow us just to waive all of the disciplines that we have learned to work together in a bipartisan way to respect.”