Richard Gephardt: “If Members think about what the gentleman just said, that we have people earning $20,000 and $18,000 and $17,000 a year…”

“If Members think about what the gentleman just said, that we have people earning $20,000 and $18,000 and $17,000 a year, and under the Republican bill they would not only maybe not get a tax cut, it would even increase their taxes, while families earning over $200,000, $300,000, and $400,000 a year would get the lion's share of the tax cut, I say that is class warfare. We are not raising class warfare, we are commenting on the class warfare that exists in the Republican bill. It is mindless to me that in 1997, after the last 10 years of economic history in this country when the top 1 percent have seen huge increases in their income, and God bless them, I am happy they have been able to earn that income, but when they have had that kind of income increase, to say they get the lion's share of the tax cut, but people at the bottom and in the middle who have been working very hard and standing in place over these last 10 years and have not seen income increases, they should get very little or nothing, that is class warfare. That is what we are trying to comment on and bring to the attention of the American people.”