Joe Barton: “as the much maligned author of this amendment, I feel somewhat put upon. Some of the more polite things the amendment…”

“as the much maligned author of this amendment, I feel somewhat put upon. Some of the more polite things the amendment has been called tonight are irresponsible, stupid and insane. It has not been called unnecessary. There have been concerns expressed about the procedure by which it has been brought to the floor. I think some of those concerns are valid. But there has not been anything substantively said against the policy we are attempting to adopt. We have heard some concerns about the language. Yet the rule offered the Democrats an alternative. If they support the policy but do not agree with the specific language, they could have brought a substitute amendment based on the same policy to the floor, and they chose not to do so. There has been much said about the history and the Founding Fathers and how in 1787 there was no requirement for supermajority vote for a tax increase in the Constitution. That is true. The original Constitution prevented an income tax of any kind. The 16th Amendment in 1913 made income taxes constitutional. So, for over 125 years the tax limitation provision that we had in the Constitution was that all tax bills should originate in the House of Representatives, which was the body closest to the people and the only Federal body always elected by the people. But beginning in 1913, with the 16th amendment, we began to have income taxes in this Nation. The first income tax was 1 percent on income up to $20,000.”