On the recordNovember 29, 2012
I listened to the Senator from Ohio and I want to be heard because he is talking about the fiscal cliff and how upset he is at the thought that the wealthiest people in America might go back to the tax rates we had under Bill Clinton when we had the greatest prosperity, we had 23 million new jobs, and we balanced the budget to the point where we even had a surplus. My friend comes down here and complains that the proposal on the table would give 98 percent of the people a tax cut and he is upset that 2 percent of the people might have to go back to the rates under Bill Clinton. I want to say something. We just had an election. We had a big election. We had a tough election. We had an expensive election. One of the major parts of that election revolved around what do we do about the deficits, what do we do about economic growth, what do we do about spending. We discussed it in the Senate races, we discussed it in the House races, and, of course, President Obama and candidate Governor Romney discussed it again and again. My friend talks about consensus. Let me tell my colleagues the consensus. More than 60 percent of the people agree with President Obama and the Democrats that we ought to climb down off this fiscal cliff in the next 5 minutes and pass what the Senate passed, which is to renew all the Bush tax cuts and go back to those over $250,000 to the rates of Bill Clinton. That is what we passed here. That would bring us almost $1 trillion over 10 years.…
