Steve Scalise: “Thank you, Congressman Akin. And you know, when you showed the chart over there about the revenue, the dip and then…”

“Thank you, Congressman Akin. And you know, when you showed the chart over there about the revenue, the dip and then ultimately as taxes were cut, Federal revenues actually increased. The same thing happened under President Reagan when President Reagan cut taxes. I think one of the myths that is out there is that the deficit grew. Some people tried to attribute that to the tax cuts. But if you really go and look, you'll see a similar chart, you'll actually see an increase in revenue. Unfortunately, you had a Democratic-controlled Congress that spent even more money than the new money that did come in. But in fact, more money came in as taxes were cut. And so I hope we use history as a guide. As you talked about earlier, there is no bill filed yet on this economic stimulus plan. We are expecting in the next week to possibly 2 weeks, there will be a bill filed. And unfortunately, right now what you've got is a bidding war. What started off as maybe a $400 or $500 billion proposal has now reached over $1 trillion where the proposals that we're hearing now are $1.3 trillion.”