On the recordNovember 18, 2010
I decided some long while ago that I was going to leave the Congress after serving 30 years. So at the end of this year, I will conclude my work here in the U.S. Congress. But I was thinking--sitting in the Chamber, listening to my two colleagues, for whom I have great respect and profound disagreements with--I was thinking about how interesting it is that people of good faith--and they are two Senators of good faith--can feel very strongly about an issue. I feel differently about some of the issues they just described, and I sat here and resisted the urge to jump up every 5 or 10 minutes and engage in that discussion. It is not a difference of opinion about whether we would like the American people to pay the lowest rate of taxes possible; it is, rather, in my judgment, about the rearview mirror of history, when historians gather 50 and 100 years from now and look back at this moment and say: All right, where was America then? Well, America had a $13 trillion debt, a $1.3 trillion deficit. We are sending men and women off to war by the hundreds of thousands, strapping on body armor in the morning, getting shot at in the afternoon. About 20 million people are either unemployed or not working up to their potential because they could not find the job that fits them. There are record numbers of people on food stamps. So that is where America was then. And what was the debate on the floor of the Congress? How can you further cut revenue?
