Elijah Lewis: “I rise against this ill- conceived, ill-considered, and ill-timed tax proposal. I have heard Speaker Gingrich refer to…”

“I rise against this ill- conceived, ill-considered, and ill-timed tax proposal. I have heard Speaker Gingrich refer to this tax proposal as the crown jewel of the Republican contract. I could not agree more. Like the crown jewels, this bill is for royalty, it is for the truly wealthy among us. If you are middle class, if you are poor, you can look but you better not touch. Just look at who gets the jewels. The truly wealthy, those 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes, get over $20,000--$20,000. Many working families do not earn that much in a year. A middle-class family gets less than $50 a month. The working poor do not even get $10 a month. Where do the Republicans get the money to pay for their royal jewels? They rob poor Peter to pay Paul. The Republicans cut student loans, school lunches, summer jobs--they cut money for roads, schools, housing, and public transportation. All to give the truly wealthy a $20,000 tax cut. Instead of calling this greedy tax bill a crown jewel, we should call it fool's gold--because for 90 percent of America, that is what it is. For the price of wealthy America's tax cut, millions of children could continue to get school lunches. Countless students could receive their student loans. Hundreds of thousands of our elderly poor would continue to receive heating assistance, to keep them from freezing in the winter.…”