Jim Risch: “Thank you, Mr. President. Fellow Senators, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to vote against this amendment. Let me tell…”

“Thank you, Mr. President. Fellow Senators, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to vote against this amendment. Let me tell you what we have here. It is very simple. Apparently, you made an error when you drafted the original bill because what you did was you levied a tax on people who make less than $200,000 a year. Very simply, what this amendment does is it corrects that. Right now, under the bill the President signed on Monday, it raised the threshold to 10 percent from 7.5 percent at which you can deduct medical expenses. That tax falls on the most vulnerable people in America--mostly the elderly, mostly very low income. And it raises taxes on 14.7 million people who make less than $200,000 a year. The President of the United States said--he told us, he committed--he would not raise taxes on people who make less than $200,000 a year. I am sure he was just confused when he signed the bill on Monday. Let's adopt this amendment and get the bill corrected. Thank you, Mr. President. I reserve the remainder of my time.”