Ben Cardin: “let me thank Mr. Rangel for yielding me this time. There is no question that we need to clean up our Tax Code. We need…”

“let me thank Mr. Rangel for yielding me this time. There is no question that we need to clean up our Tax Code. We need to make it predictable. We need to deal with expiring provisions. I would hope that we would deal with the savers' credit that is scheduled to expire because that helps low-wage workers, and we need to deal with that. I would hope that we would adjust the Federal estate tax and make the changes permanent, but I cannot support this bill. This bill is fiscally irresponsible. By the chairman's own account, the Joint Tax Committee estimates that it will cost us $283 billion that we do not have. That $283 billion is basically in the second 5 years of the program because we already have a law in place now. So the annual loss of revenue is close to $60 billion a year. There is no offset to that loss. To the credit of a Marylander who contacted me and wants to see a permanent change in the estate tax, that person at least had enough courage to suggest offsets so that we would not be adding to the deficit of the country, but this legislation does not do that. It is fiscally irresponsible. Mr. Speaker, it speaks to our priorities. Yes, we have time to deal with estate taxes that will benefit basically people who have wealth in excess of millions of dollars, but we do not have enough time to deal with increasing the minimum wage that has been stagnant now for the last 10 years, people making $5.15 an hour. Where is the priority of this Congress?…”