Pete Stark: “Are you confused? Mr. Speaker, I think a lot of people listening to this debate over the last 2 days are. They should…”

“Are you confused? Mr. Speaker, I think a lot of people listening to this debate over the last 2 days are. They should be. In fact this legislation is designed to confuse the process, rushing this through before Congress's month-long vacation, is designed to obscure the truth. The truth is yesterday Congress adopted very substantial cuts in Medicare, cuts in reimbursements, cuts that will drive up premiums for seniors, cuts that will deprive seniors of home health oxygen benefits, and today they are using the proceeds of those cuts to fund huge tax breaks, $275 billion in tax breaks over the next 10 years, tax breaks that will double the deficit by the year 1999. Yes, that is right. The balanced budget agreement before us today will double the deficit over the next 2 years, and that is from the Republican-controlled Congressional Budget Office. It will probably more than double the deficit over the next 2 years. A strange path to fiscal responsibility. What underlays this whole thing? Tax cuts slanted toward the very wealthy, repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax; an embarrassing time in the mid-1980's when Ronald Reagan supported imposing a corporate alternative minimum tax, as the largest corporations of this country were getting refunds for taxes they did not pay. We are going back to that. We will all pay taxes so corporations can get refunds for taxes they do not pay.”