Olympia Snowe: “I rise today regarding the tax bill before the Senate that would extend certain tax provisions set to expire this year.…”

“I rise today regarding the tax bill before the Senate that would extend certain tax provisions set to expire this year. Let me say that I support the policy underlying the tax measures contained in this conference report. What I find regrettable, however, is that we are even at this juncture where we are faced essentially with a choice between these tax reductions and fiscal responsibility-- when, in fact, we could have achieved both. Instead, we have before us a tax package that will directly add $146 billion to the Federal deficit. Why? Because the 2003 tax package sunset after one year rightfully popular measures of benefit to middle-class and lower income Americans--that also provided short term economic stimulus--this year, in order to pay for other tax reductions over 5 years that are not geared toward short-term stimulus. As a result, here we are, about to enact 5 years of $146 billion in tax reductions over and above the $350 billion we passed last year--when we could have provided for 5 years of these same, worthy tax cut measures with last year's $350 billion package. I supported the $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax relief plan of 2001 because, at that time, the tax burden was the highest it had been since World War II--and also to provide an 'insurance policy,' to paraphrase Chairman Greenspan, against a more prolonged economic recession that we now know began six months before President Bush took office.”