Glenn English: “This has been a useful debate because I think in an odd way it has highlighted a couple of things. First of all there is…”

“This has been a useful debate because I think in an odd way it has highlighted a couple of things. First of all there is a consensus in this Chamber behind the bill that the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) has put forward. There will be a substitute offered. I will have ample opportunity and grounds to criticize that substitute when it is offered, but for now I think what needs to be emphasized here is that in the end both parties are committed to at least moving forward on this very limited bill. I wish we were doing more today, but the fact is, this is probably the best we could agree on in the gridlock that exists in the institution right now. I would like to use some of my time to respond to some of the points that were made by the other side. First of all, let us be clear. This bill is not about the war. It is not really about the deficit in the sense that I think it is fairly clear and I would hope people on both sides could agree that we do not need revenue from this source. We can come up with spending cuts, and we can come up with alternative revenue sources to deal with this. We do not need the revenue applied from applying an AMT that was intended to be applied originally only to a very narrow band of very wealthy taxpayers, applying it to the middle class.”