Mark Neumann: “I want to mention, and we have talked about this a little, how this is really a tough dilemma, because on one hand we…”

“I want to mention, and we have talked about this a little, how this is really a tough dilemma, because on one hand we have flood victims who are truly in need of help, and on the other hand we have the responsibility to the future generations as well as to our senior citizens to make sure we are able to fulfill our commitments to seniors and to Medicare and also our commitment to our future generations to not leave them with a debt so big they are paying 89 percent of their total income in taxes. So what do we do in this type of dilemma? I will give my colleagues an example, because this occurred today. In the Committee on Appropriations meeting I suggested that rather than simply saying let the children pay, or do a spend-now-pay-later kind of idea, where the children literally get this $4.8 billion, $4,800 million passed onto their backs, that what we do is this: We, as Members of Congress, make a commitment, and our commitment is this, and do not laugh when I say this. Rather than have elevator operators, who sit in elevators and collect tax dollars, push elevator buttons for us as we travel from our office buildings to the House floor to vote, that rather than use the salaries for them, instead of asking our children to pay, we no longer have elevator operators push the buttons as we travel from one place to another in this community.”