Gilbert Gutknecht: “I want to talk about the facts because we heard earlier today, and there is some revisionist history that it was the…”

“I want to talk about the facts because we heard earlier today, and there is some revisionist history that it was the, quote, minimal tax hikes of 1993 that brought about the balanced budget that we have today. Mr. Chairman, I am not making up the facts. This is according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is the direction we were headed in 1995. The deficit was at about $200 billion. They were predicting that by 2009 we would have deficits approaching $600 billion, and worse, that included the Social Security surpluses. Now where are we today? Mr. Chairman, thanks to some of the fiscal discipline demonstrated by this Congress since 1994, we are headed in the right direction. Again, these are not our numbers. This is according to the Congressional Budget Office. Now one of the things that we are debating here today is whether or not there should be tax relief for the average American family. Now somebody said earlier, and it is true, and this is according to the Tax Foundation, that Americans now pay the highest tax burden since 1944.”