Richard Gephardt: “I rise tonight in favor of the Rangel Democratic bill and to speak in favor of it over the Republican bill. I rise to…”

“I rise tonight in favor of the Rangel Democratic bill and to speak in favor of it over the Republican bill. I rise to raise a simple question, which is who should be getting the lion's share of the benefit from this tax cut bill. Everybody is for tax cuts. I am, the Republicans are, I think every Member of the House is happy tonight that we are here on the floor talking about tax cuts. The reason we are here, in my view, is that the Democratic Party in 1993 produced this deficit dividend as a result of courageous votes cast by Democrats, all Democrats in 1993. Now we are very near to balancing the budget. Some say we might even balance the budget next year as a result of that action. So the question is, who gets the tax cut? I believe, and I think Democrats believe, that this tax cut should go to hard-working, middle-income families and families struggling to get into the middle class. I refer the Members to these charts. The Republican bill gives 19 million families the lion's share of their tax cut, about 70 percent, to families earning over $100,000 a year. They only give about 30 percent of their tax cut to families earning less than $100,000, whereas with the Democratic tax bill we give the lion's share of our tax cut to families earning below $100,000 a year, 91 million families. We give a tax cut to families earning over $100,000 a year, but it is less of a tax cut.”