Chuck Grassley: “because I am chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and we have jurisdiction over taxes, I want to respond to some of…”

“because I am chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and we have jurisdiction over taxes, I want to respond to some of the comments that have been made over the last 2 or 3 days, both on the floor as well as in news conferences, by the Senate Democratic leadership on the reconciliation tax relief bill that will be before Congress sometime between now and Thanksgiving. Quite frankly, it is necessary to pass because if we do not, then taxes are automatically going to go up without a vote of Congress. It is not necessarily the biggest tax increase that Congress has ever voted but a very sizable tax increase. Obviously, if we are going to increase taxes, it ought to be done by a vote of the Congress and not done automatically. So we have to take action before we adjourn this fall, and that is what the reconciliation tax relief bill is all about. It is quite obvious from these news conferences that the Democrats have been having, in statements on the floor, that they do not seem to understand that this is going to happen, and if it does happen, it is going to hurt middle income taxpayers as well as lower income taxpayers. In press reports for several weeks now, the distinguished Democratic leader suggested that we cease all efforts to address expiring tax relief provisions. The senior Senator from Nevada stated as follows: I think we need to revisit this budget and reconciliation. Is it really the time to have $70 billion more in tax cuts?…”