Charles Rangel: “I think most New York Members in the Congress probably have more self-esteem than we need in order to negotiate…”

“I think most New York Members in the Congress probably have more self-esteem than we need in order to negotiate ourselves around this Congress, but my friend from upper New York is really better than all of us because he is telling us what is involved in a 600-page bill that has just been filed 5 minutes ago. Now that is extraordinary. What is not extraordinary is that the leadership on the Republican side are using an extraordinary provision to avoid the rules, which only say that the Members of Congress ought to know what the gentleman from New York knows. He knows everything that is in the bill. Members of the Congress ought to know what is in the bill. They should understand the feeling of fishing tackles, and bows and arrows, and tax credits for animal manures. They should be able to understand how you are taking away charitable contribution, how we are converting the collection of taxes from the Internal Revenue Service to private corporations. They should understand that we are putting $42 billion in tax credits to allow our jobs to be exported overseas, which is something that we were trying so desperately hard not to do. Martial law? How would the people understand what we are doing here? What are we rushing off to do? The bill costs $140 billion. They will come and say to us that it is paid for. Well, how are we to argue that if we do not have a bill to see how you pay for it?”