Hank Johnson: “I thank the gentlewoman. Today, we are just about ready to vote on an omnibus spending bill, which is a part of the tax…”

“I thank the gentlewoman. Today, we are just about ready to vote on an omnibus spending bill, which is a part of the tax extender bill that we, or that some passed today. I did not vote for it. I was opposed to the tax extender bill, which added $622 billion to the Nation's long-term debt, unpaid for, and largely tax cuts to the wealthy. There are some features in the tax extenders bill that were appealing. For instance, it enhanced the child tax credit. It made it permanent, along with the enhanced earned income tax credit. Those are important for middle class people, working people. Those are very important, and we did the right thing on those. But, unfortunately, they represented a small part of that $622 billion, two-thirds of which was a giveaway to the wealthy through various tax loopholes. So Congress did that dirty deed today, and it blew a hole in the Nation's long-term debt. And you know what is going to happen? Because while you have reduced the amount of resources that the Federal Government takes in to be able to give back to the people who are governed, in the form of transportation dollars, healthcare dollars, education dollars, national security dollars, things that we have to pay for; in other words, you can't have the freedoms that we enjoy and the prosperity that we all enjoy, without having a government that lays down this infrastructure, and that is what our tax receipts pay for. We have been cutting Federal revenues since 1980.…”