David Thomas: “the minority leader, in discussing the minority position, talked about the vision of the gentleman from New York, the…”

“the minority leader, in discussing the minority position, talked about the vision of the gentleman from New York, the path that he wished to take. We were just handed 3 minutes ago this particular motion to recommit, so if we are looking for a contest of freshness, the gentleman's vision is clearly the most recently pasted-together piece of legislation to be presented us. In fact, the paste is still kind of damp. So if, in fact, the vision is the path that the gentleman from New York wishes to follow, we would hope it is a shining path. But when you look at this legislation, what you discover, notwithstanding the half an hour of berating on the floor of the House the tobacco proposal, guess what is recently pasted to his vision? You guessed it, the tobacco proposal. Apparently he has had a change of vision. For more than 20 years, when they were the majority, they did not give a dang about people deducting sales taxes, because they were the ones who removed it from the code. But, guess what? That vision had a bolt of lightning 20 minutes ago, and now we have permanent sales tax removal. Had Republicans decided to go with permanent sales tax removal, I am quite sure they would have come up with a deduction for your dog. Why? Because no matter what we do, they are going to be better. But better is not copying. Better is starting out with an idea, carrying it through, and presenting it to you.…”