Maurice Hinchey: “Mr. Speaker, perhaps the kindest characterization of this proposal would be to say that it is disingenuous. It is…”

“Mr. Speaker, perhaps the kindest characterization of this proposal would be to say that it is disingenuous. It is obviously disingenuous, because the party that is offering it here, the majority party in this House, several years ago adopted an internal resolution that required a two-thirds majority to raise revenues by any vote taken by the House of Representatives. What have we seen in the carrying out of the adoption of that change in the rules here? What we have seen is that virtually every time the issue has come up, the leadership of the House has waived the requirement. So one can only conclude that this proposal for a super majority, anti-democratic super majority to raise revenues, is one that is not really believed in by those people who are offering it, because every time they have had an opportunity to put it into place they have abandoned it. They have walked away from it. It seems quite clear that they do not even believe in it themselves. Why would we want to do this? Why would we put fiscal policy in a Constitution when every sound economic principle everywhere says that that would be a foolish thing to do? Why would we want to do it? How would we react to emergencies? How would we respond to a crisis in agriculture? How would we respond to national emergencies of various kinds?”