John Yarmuth: “Thank you. This is kind of a tangent, but it's important to mention because we hear from the other side so many times, I…”

“Thank you. This is kind of a tangent, but it's important to mention because we hear from the other side so many times, I think from the Presidential candidate as well as so many Members, that the answer to the health care crisis is to give families a $5,000 or so tax credit so they can pay for their health insurance. You've framed the issue extremely well; how many families of moderate income can afford to pay? The $5,000 tax credit doesn't mean anything when their health insurance is costing them $14,000 a year. First of all, they don't have the money to spend, so they probably are not paying a lot of tax to begin with. A tax credit is kind of a myth. It's just something that maybe sounds good, but in the real world doesn't work. But you also mentioned a very important element to this, and that's the issue of education. The President and the Republicans have continued to underfund education in this country at almost negligent amounts for a number of years now. We just had a press conference a few weeks ago in my district because we were able to get enough money, a Federal grant to provide scholarships for 500 citizens of my district that would enable them to get an associate's degree. We calculated the amount of increased earning capacity based on that $1 million worth of scholarships and it ended up being $13 million worth of increased revenue earning capacity based on a $1 million investment.”