John Garamendi: “Thank you so very much for the opportunity to address the House on a rather important matter. I got a call from my…”

“Thank you so very much for the opportunity to address the House on a rather important matter. I got a call from my accountant, and he said, Are you going to get your tax information in so we can actually get you filed by the 15th? I said, I will do my best. So we're in the process of doing that. So I suspect most Americans are also thinking seriously about taxes. And what I want to talk about tonight and share with my colleagues from Wisconsin, Ohio, and New York is the tax issues that have come about over these last 15 months. I left California this morning to fly here to Washington, D.C., and this session, and as I picked up the Sacramento Bee, on the front page was a headline that said, Tax refunds the largest ever, 2,600 and some dollars per family in California. I said, Whoa, how did that happen? I thought taxes had gone up. I looked into it and asked my staff to dig out some information, and, in fact, taxes have actually gone down in a very, very serious way here as a result of the stimulus bill that was passed. Now, one of my, I guess, sad situations is I wasn't here to vote for the stimulus bill. I was just elected in November of 2009, so I didn't have the opportunity to really vote for what turns out to be one of the largest middle class tax cuts in American history.”