Albert Russell Wynn: “now that we have declared victory over Iraq, the country's attention will turn once again to important domestic…”

“now that we have declared victory over Iraq, the country's attention will turn once again to important domestic priorities. Unfortunately, we find our economy in a great slump. The President and my Republican colleagues come before you with a program that I believe is woefully inadequate, because all they have done is trot out their all-purpose solution to domestic problems: More tax cuts. I would say to my Republican colleagues that was then, this is now. In the year 2000, we had a surplus, a $5.6 billion surplus. At that time, then-Governor George Bush said he wanted to give the surplus back to the taxpayers and invigorate the economy. I would suggest that the economy has not been invigorated. Two years later millions have lost their jobs and we are looking at deficits of $2 trillion going forth over the next 10 years. So the question Americans should ask is, why do they want to cut taxes now if the rationale for the tax cut in 2001 was that we had a surplus? We do not have a surplus today. We have huge deficits today. We also have a war against terrorism and a homeland security program to fund. Reducing government resources at a time of war against Iraq and a war against terrorism just does not make sense. It is kind of like George Bush said when he was running for President, ``It is fuzzy math.'' In the year 2001, President Bush passed through his tax cut, $1.3 trillion, saying it would stimulate the economy.”