Chuck Grassley: “We give more money to the States if they want to improve even more their unemployment benefits. We are giving a 60…”

“We give more money to the States if they want to improve even more their unemployment benefits. We are giving a 60- percent tax credit for health care tax for unemployed workers, including people who can use it to extend COBRA insurance benefits. States will have the ability to address problems such as part-time workers. There is a modest proposal to accelerate income tax rate reductions in the 27-percent bracket. I am sure there are a lot of Members of this body, particularly those who voted against the bipartisan tax bill last spring, who are not going to want to speed up, from 27 percent to 25 percent, the reduction of that tax rate. Somehow there is an insinuation that if you do that, you are helping the wealthy. I want my colleagues to remember that this benefits a single taxpayer earning as little as $27,051 and going up to $65,000. And then, for a married couple, that would kick in at $45,201, going up to $109,000. For people making $27,000, where this bracket starts, or for married couples making $45,000, these are not rich people or rich families. What we are talking about is a 2-percentage-point tax cut for these folks. So is there anything wrong with a single person paying $770 less in taxes or a married couple paying $1,281 less in taxes if they fall into this income tax bracket that we would call middle income? It seems to me it is fair, but, most importantly, it is meant to be a stimulus.”