David Thomas: “Mr. Speaker, in terms of that honest, pleading appeal, I am going to just try to put a couple of tests in place to see…”

“Mr. Speaker, in terms of that honest, pleading appeal, I am going to just try to put a couple of tests in place to see how real it was. If this motion to recommit is so critical to the future of the Social Security trust fund, why was it not in the Pomeroy substitute? 190 Democrats less than a half an hour ago voted to raid the Social Security trust fund. The Pomeroy substitute spends more than $22 billion over the next 5 years. It violates the budget, and it runs us into deficit spending, and it violates this motion to recommit. So if Members are so concerned, why was this not part of the Pomeroy substitute? The answer is, they want to complain about it but they do not want to be responsible for it. Less than a week ago we had many Democrats on the floor wringing their hands over the constitutional crisis; that if we sent the executive branch the superwaiver in the welfare bill, that we would be ceding constitutional authority to the executive, constitutional authority that we should cling to our chests very, very hard because we do not want to give up this constitutional right. Did Members read this? It says, 'The director of Office of Management and Budget will certify.' It is the executive branch that will tell us if this institution, with its constitutional powers, is in violation, and it is the OMB that will correct it.”