Pete Stark: “Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2014 cuts taxes by over $100 billion in 5 years and almost $300 billion over 10 years. Those are…”

“Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2014 cuts taxes by over $100 billion in 5 years and almost $300 billion over 10 years. Those are massive cuts, and if this Congress had the gumption to legislate with long-term interests in mind, we might have scrapped these cuts entirely and used the so-called savings to balance the Medicare trust fund, which we have not done. We could have made Medicare solvent well past 2020 had we not entertained this amazing tax bill. Who gets the cuts? Half the cuts go the richest 5 percent of Americans, those with over $150,000 in income. The richest 20 percent gets 75 percent of the benefit, the top 35 percent get huge benefits, the bottom 60 percent get 7 percent of the benefits. Compare that with the richest 1 percent with average incomes of $645,000. They are getting $16,000 every year in benefits out of this. The lowest 20 percent of the people in the low-income class are going to pay $39 a year more taxes. Those are the very people that the Republicans and the President and his welfare bill have cut off the rolls. Those are the people they are dumping on. That is not Christianity, that is greed. That is awful, to take the poorest Americans, deny them the assistance we have all tried to give them, and then increase their taxes, on top of it.”