Doris Matsui: “I added up all the tax cuts that the Republicans have been taking about. Over a 10-year period these tax cuts come to…”

“I added up all the tax cuts that the Republicans have been taking about. Over a 10-year period these tax cuts come to $600 billion or about $60 billion a year. That is why the President in the budget agreement said over 10 years it can be no more than a net of $250 billion, less than half of the total tax cuts as they add up. We thought the Republicans were going to be moderate, that they were going to try to compromise, they were going to pick and choose and prioritize what tax cuts they wanted to give the American public. What they did instead was committed a little duplicity. What they did was they phased these tax cuts in. They phased them in over a 10-, 12-, 15- year period. For example, the capital gains tax cut does not come into effect until the year 2001, and as a result of that what we are going to see is, yes, the net tax cuts for the first 10 years will be $250 billion.”