Charles Rangel: “I support the rule because the Committee on Rules was kind enough to give us a substitute so that it would give…”

“I support the rule because the Committee on Rules was kind enough to give us a substitute so that it would give Republicans and Democrats an opportunity to really get off the political hook. There is nothing more disgraceful during a time of war for people to take advantage of it and pull out old Republican tax cuts that are totally unrelated to the stimulus that the President asked for and that our leadership asked for. This bill that is coming up is the first time on this floor that we have deviated completely from the whole concept of bipartisanship. It is something that is just arrogantly brought to us, as other bills have been brought to the floor by the Committee on Ways and Means, without any consultation at all with the Democrats on the committee. It shows utter contempt for Democrats, utter contempt for the House, and in this particular case, utter contempt for the other body, since we started off on a bipartisan way with guidelines. Those guidelines are that this is supposed to be temporary tax relief. This is not temporary. It was supposed to be no bigger than $75 billion over 10 years. This more than doubles that. It was supposed to be offset, which is the budget's way of saying it should be paid for, and even the budget chairman says it is not paid for. This is a disgrace in terms of what it will do for long-term interest rates.”