David Obey: “taking back my time, that is exactly my point. The gentleman does not know why the original numbers were selected.…”

“taking back my time, that is exactly my point. The gentleman does not know why the original numbers were selected. Neither do we on the committee. The role of the authorizing committee is to determine what those reasons were and to determine whether or not those relative relationships still make sense in a modern economy. I would fully agree that virtually every one of these numbers probably ought to be adjusted because inflation has had an effect. My point is that I do not know what the correct level of adjustment is, and I would suggest that no Member of this House, on the basis of information which has been presented to us here today, can go out and explain to the media or our constituents why these different relationships should continue to exist. Shopping centers in many areas of the country did not even exist in 1959. I would suggest that the economy has changed so much since then that we probably need a far different level of threshold in relationship to the other thresholds than we have in the law today. I would grant that. But to simply come in here and say each of these outmoded numbers should be adjusted by the same percentage is in and of itself just as ham-handed and outmoded, I believe, as the original statute.”