On the recordMarch 25, 2015
We have heard that, despite all these claims, the Republican budget doesn't balance. I just read from USA Today. They don't have a stake in this battle. They said it is ``fanciful at best.'' And it is interesting that if that is the number one priority of our Republican colleagues, why is it they don't cut one single special interest tax break to help reduce the deficit? Not one. There are $1.4 trillion a year in what the Congressional Budget Office classifies as tax expenditures. These are tax breaks. That is $1.4 trillion a year. That is more than we spend on Social Security every year. It is more than we spend on Medicare and Medicaid combined every year. They don't cut a single one of those. Maybe it is because 17 percent of those tax breaks go to the top 1 percent of income earners. And this is in a budget where their whole economic theory is based on the idea we are going to cut tax rates for the folks at the very top. The Ways and Means Committee just added over $280 billion to the deficit--or is in the process of doing it--to help 5,500 American families. So they don't cut a single tax break. In fact, they are giving bigger ones to families with estates over $10 million, 75 percent of whom have estates over $20 million. But they cut education. They don't fund the Veterans Administration at the level the President does this year.…
