Charles Rangel: “Fellow Members, I want to thank Chairman Costello and Chairman Oberstar for their cooperation and working together as a…”

“Fellow Members, I want to thank Chairman Costello and Chairman Oberstar for their cooperation and working together as a team with our Republican colleagues to get this job done. Quite frankly, I thought it was almost going to be pro forma when I knew that the Ways and Means Committee was going to receive this bill for the purposes of providing revenue. So I was a little surprised that when the issue actually came before the full committee, rather than dealing with the question of revenue, I had to deal with the question of outrage. There was not a liberal, conservative, Republican or Democrat that didn't believe that this was our time to tell these aviation people that we passengers have been suffering in such a way that we were going to express it through the tax system. People on the tarmac for 3, 4, 5 hours; flights being cancelled; weather conditions we never heard of; overcrowding. And we were of the belief that when they came to raising the revenue, that General Aviation, these small planes were congesting the airs and we were going to make them pay dearly for it, and Chairman Oberstar and Chairman Costello was asking us to take a deep breath. I told them it wasn't me. But the committee said that this bill is not going to leave our committee unless we have some fingerprints on this thing to let them know that we feel the outrage for our constituents and we want them to know it.”