Charles Rangel: “Let me thank the Speaker for the service that he's given to the Congress. Some day someone may review our conduct here…”

“Let me thank the Speaker for the service that he's given to the Congress. Some day someone may review our conduct here in the House, and one of the speakers on the other side, I guess he's gone, but he said shame on the Congress. I just wanted to join with him on that. But I also want history to record that they may ask what the heck was Rangel doing down there when this was going on? What happened? And I hope the Record is abundantly clear that this was outlined in a campaign. It was a Presidential campaign. And the President said that as a result of America getting into wars and not paying for it, and as a result of wrongdoing in Wall Street, and the result of a whole lot of people getting out of work, that we had to have a program to raise the money and to pay down on the deficit by cutting back programs. It seems as though what has happened here is that the Republican Party missed something. Maybe it was election night. Maybe it was a small group of the Republican Party. But they really didn't believe, or don't believe that the President won. And this whole idea of protecting 2 percent of the population actually was on a vote. The people voted, and the President said he was going to protect 98 percent of the taxpayers. And so somehow this is not being understood. Further from that, if you have to have more savings, and I agree that we do, why would you go, of all places, to the most vulnerable?…”