Brian Mast: “This is not a debate on education, but I am worried about the ability of my colleagues to add. As we talk about tax and…”

“This is not a debate on education, but I am worried about the ability of my colleagues to add. As we talk about tax and rates and terms thrown out about things like ``irresponsible'' and ``giveaways,'' I think it is incumbent that we reflect on those terms and what that actually means. When we think about the rates that were passed, you think about somebody's rate going from 15 percent down to 12 percent, or from 25 percent down to 22 percent, or from 28 percent down to 24 percent, and you think about that as an overall of a 10 percentage point move. Or you think about the top three brackets coming down from 39.6 percent down to 37 percent. Or going down another point below that, maybe a 3.6 percent decrease, total, on the top three brackets, and 10 percent on the bottom four brackets. That is not an inequitable distribution of those tax cuts. You think about the term being thrown around when somebody says it is a giveaway. When somebody says that it is a giveaway to allow somebody to keep more of their earnings, what they are saying, fundamentally, is that a person's earnings don't belong to them; they belong to the Federal Government, and the Federal Government can give those earnings back to them. That is not the truth. All of the earnings, the work of somebody's hands, the fruits of somebody's labor, those are the earnings of the individual, and they are good enough to give the Federal Government some of those dollars to go out there and function.…”