Xavier Becerra: “this motion to instruct is not about a debate as to whether we should cut taxes for Americans; this motion to instruct…”

“this motion to instruct is not about a debate as to whether we should cut taxes for Americans; this motion to instruct talks about how we should cut taxes for Americans. In essence, what are our priorities in Congress and in the White House? Should we, on the one hand, provide relief for over 17 million middle-class American taxpaying households, as we propose; or should we, as the other side proposes, provide relief that benefits principally one-fifth of 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans in this country? Federal budgeting is no different than family budgeting at the end of the day. Yet if you look at the actions of this Congress today and over the last several years, what this Congress is saying to American families is, do as I say not as I do. This year, the Federal Government will run a $518 billion deficit. We are running record deficits this year. That deficit is portrayed as being $337 billion, only $337 billion, because this Congress is taking $181 billion out of the Social Security trust fund to help cover the massive size of the Federal budget deficit. The total national debt today stands at over $8 trillion, and President Bush, in his budget, admits that we will pay more than $247 billion next year in interest payments on the Federal debt alone. A quarter of $1 trillion to do nothing but pay the interest on the debt. There was a joke I heard not too long ago about how you could know if 2006 would be a challenging year.…”