Jack Kingston: “I wanted to talk about the impact of health care on small businesses and the family. I think it is so important that we…”

“I wanted to talk about the impact of health care on small businesses and the family. I think it is so important that we talk about the family more. The central theme behind that debate was, will this make life better for our students and our families, and will we be getting back to maybe some better values as a country? I think one of the things that we need to do in America is assess our tax system as respects the family. A statistic that I fell across the other day has just shocked me. That is that in the 1950's, the average American family paid, as part of their income, 2 percent taxes in Federal income tax, so part of the average family income, 2 percent went to Federal income taxes. Today that same average family pays 24 percent. During that period of time, Mr. Speaker, the family time spent with each other has actually decreased about 37 percent. Now I'm not sure how that statistic actually has been studied, but I think the fact is that everyone we talk to is busy: The mom works, the dad works, they are rushing around here and there, they are trying to catch planes and go on trips and so forth.”