On the recordOctober 26, 2017
It is getting time for Halloween, so they have put on the disguise on the other side. So what we are hearing today is, from the last two Republican speakers: This is a bad budget. Let's vote ``yes.'' The gentleman from Ohio said a while ago, this is all about the middle class. The middle class does not pay an estate tax. The middle class, because of our efforts--and, I think, mine in particular--no longer pay the alternative minimum tax. And the people in the middle class are not locked into the 39.6 top rate in the Tax Code. This is a disguise. They are adding $1.5 trillion to the debt and, actually, over 10 years, when you borrow the money, they are adding $2.3 trillion to the debt, all for a tax cut for people at the very top. Now, let me say this: I am happy to negotiate a tax reform package that we can all live with. I am happy to sit down with the other side and acknowledge some parts of the Code that clearly don't work any longer for the American people. This is being done by one party, exclusively. They have not negotiated with us. They have not given us the opening. They have not said to us: ``Where do you want to proceed on this?'' Instead, if you pass this budget today, they suggest you are going to see their plan on November 1, and you are going to vote for it sometime around November 6. That is not negotiation.…
