Carol Shea-Porter: “I wanted to say, this is not just Democrats who are saying this. Republicans who are no longer in power have also been…”

“I wanted to say, this is not just Democrats who are saying this. Republicans who are no longer in power have also been attacking these plans. David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration, called these tax cuts 'unaffordable.' He is one of many voices who said this. Unfortunately, the Republicans who are in power now are not listening. It is fiscally irresponsible. We need that income; we had to have that revenue so we could pay our bills. If we had that revenue, what could we do with it? Or if we were going to borrow, what should we have borrowed for? To begin with, we could start paying our military men and women more. This year they are having a very tiny increase. They are outraged, and I don't blame them. They have been serving this country honorably. We have been at war for 8 years. They are exhausted, and now they are getting a very tiny pay raise. We could have used it for that. What else? We could have helped mom and pop small businesses, the businesses on Main Street. Rather than giving those tax cuts to the top 1 percent, we could have used that money to help our small businesses that are struggling. What else could we have done? We could have put money into infrastructure and created jobs. We could have been building things. You walk around Washington and you see beautiful buildings that were built during the Depression.”