Doris Matsui: “Mr. Speaker, this bill will not give anybody a diaper rash. It has nothing to do with diaper rashes and things of that…”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill will not give anybody a diaper rash. It has nothing to do with diaper rashes and things of that nature. What we saw was that in January of 2001, we were projecting a $5.6 trillion surplus. That surplus is almost all gone now because we passed a tax cut of $1.3 trillion last year, and now we are going to pass a $4 trillion tax cut over the next 20 years. $5.5 trillion in tax cuts. What is interesting about this tax cut, it will not give baby rashes, but those people whose tax returns show an average of $500,000 a year, let me repeat that, $500,000 a year, will get 60 percent of that $5.5 trillion surplus. To put it another way, if your tax return shows over $1 million a year, you are going to get 40 percent of this $5.5 trillion tax cut. This is payroll tax money. The people on the elevators, running the elevators, waitresses in restaurants, this is their money that they think is going into the Social Security trust account, and instead it is going to go to pay for tax cuts for those earning $1 million a year or $500,000 a year. I have to say that in addition to that, this is going to put a massive drain on the Social Security trust fund. It will not give baby rashes, but it is going to do major damage to senior citizens throughout the United States.”