On the recordApril 9, 2014
I just want to respond to a couple of points the chairman made about tax reform. You know, Republican etiology in Washington has been that of trickle-down economics. The idea is you provide the wealthiest people in the country with a tax break and somehow it trickles down and lifts everybody up. The problem is that theory was proven bankrupt in the early 2000s. Under the Bush administration, we tried that--lower tax rates at the top. The economy did not do any better. In fact, what we got was huge deficits. Now in this Republican budget, they are right back to the same old veiled theory. They called for reducing the top tax rate for millionaires from 39 percent down to 25 percent, and they claim that they are going to do this in a deficit-neutral way. When you do the math, what that means is you are going to have to increase the tax burden on middle class taxpayers to finance tax breaks for folks at the top. Just to give our Republican colleagues an opportunity to say that that is not what they intended, in the Budget Committee, we offered an amendment calling it Protect the American Middle Class from Tax Increases, saying, okay, at least tell the Ways and Means Committee that one of your principles as you reduce tax breaks for millionaires is not to increase the tax burden on the middle class, and every Republican on the Budget Committee voted against that provision. I am pleased that we have the author of that amendment with us on the floor right now.…
