On the recordSeptember 23, 2010
I will be mercifully brief. I wished to come to the floor to briefly speak about a couple issues. First and foremost, the raging debate that is occurring in the country about the expiring tax cuts--the so-called Bush tax cuts that were enacted in the year 2001 that cut taxes across the board. They cut taxes more generously for the wealthiest Americans, but nonetheless they cut taxes for all Americans as well, and they were designed, in 2001, to expire this year. I did not vote for them in 2001. I voted in 2001 against those tax cuts and not because I wouldn't want to provide tax cuts to the American people, but the proposition, I thought, was flawed. The President inherited the last year of President Clinton's fiscal policy, which produced the only budget surplus we had had in 30 years. From that budget surplus that year, the projection by economists was that we were going to have budget surpluses for the next decade. As a result of that, Mr. Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, had an apoplectic seizure. He said he couldn't sleep because he was worried we were going to pay down the debt too fast. The Bush administration said: If we are going to have these surpluses, we must return surpluses to the American people. We have to do that through these tax cuts. I stood on the floor, at my desk, and I said: Why don't we be conservative? Let's decide to wait and see what happens. If we do, in fact, have surpluses, let us provide some tax cuts.…
