Mike Levin: “this tax reconciliation conference report before us today sets a new standard for irresponsibility. It is a huge…”

“this tax reconciliation conference report before us today sets a new standard for irresponsibility. It is a huge giveaway to the wealthiest among us that is papered over by a disingenuous effort to increase short-term revenues at a great long- term cost. Like so many of the bills we have considered recently, this conference report fails to invest in our Nation's priorities while driving us deeper and deeper into debt. Perhaps the most outrageous aspect of this bill is how deeply unfair it is. According to the Tax Policy Center, 87 percent of the benefits of this bill would flow to the 14 percent of households with incomes above $100,000; 55 percent of the benefits would go those with incomes above $200,000; and households earning more than $1 million a year, which account for only 0.2 percent of all households, would receive 22 percent of the benefits of these tax cuts. In contrast, the three-quarters of American households with incomes below $75,000 would receive just 5 percent of the benefits. And the 60 percent of households with incomes below $50,000 would receive less than 2 percent of all benefits. Approximately three-quarters of Michigan taxpayers would receive no benefit at all from the bill's most expensive provision an extension of the capital gains and dividends tax cuts. The inequities in this bill are even more glaring when you look at the actual dollars.…”