David Thomas: “Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the debate, I do want to thank the staffs, the majority staff, the minority staff, and…”

“Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the debate, I do want to thank the staffs, the majority staff, the minority staff, and the institutional staffs for something that has to happen before the Members can stand before the Speaker and the House in the Chamber and the American people and debate measures in front of us; that is, do an enormous amount of paperwork, double-checking to make sure that what is the desire of the House and Senate actually is produced in the document. It happens on every bill that comes up. It especially happens on a very difficult and complex conference report, and I do want to acknowledge the tremendous service that our staffs perform for us on a daily basis. Mr. Speaker, I also want to say that, as is the wont of legislative bodies, one of the easier ways to gain enough votes to pass a measure is to tend to listen to what people believe are either their needs or wants, collect that in an amalgam, and move forward. It is my real pleasure to tell the Members of the House that if they have read the text, they will search in vain for any particular provision that is attributed to any particular Member of either body. In the vernacular, this is a clean bill.”