Charles Rangel: “Mr. Speaker, I always am impressed by the chairman of the committee's use of words. He said that we are out here because…”

“Mr. Speaker, I always am impressed by the chairman of the committee's use of words. He said that we are out here because of the exigencies of circumstances. What he means is, we made a mess and we got to fix it. It is a mess that did not have to happen. Mr. Speaker, I refer to an op-ed of Sunday, February 11, 2001, by Robert Rubin that is called A Prosperity Easy to Destroy. It says in short: The proposed tax cut of roughly $2 trillion--$1.6 trillion of tax cuts plus $400 billion of interest on debt that would otherwise have been retired--would substantially diminish the fiscal position of the Federal Government, and would create a serious threat of deficits on the nonentitlement side of the Federal budget. This was all predicted in February of last year. We came out here, and we have been told, ``You can spend all you want, you can give it all away, you can do all these things.'' He actually even predicted that there would not be any money for a prescription drug benefit. Ha. Mr. Rubin knew very well. He is the guy that brought us out of the mess that you created between 1980 and 1992. Two Republicans, Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush, they dug the hole, we dug us out of it, and now you are back into it and you call it the exigencies of circumstances. Why do you not admit you have made a mess?”