Carol Shea-Porter: “when I ran for Congress, I ran for the rest of us, the bottom 99 percent of us who as a social worker I knew were not…”

“when I ran for Congress, I ran for the rest of us, the bottom 99 percent of us who as a social worker I knew were not getting a fair shake under this administration and its followers. I knew they had created the greatest deficits in American history and that it was the middle class who had been harmed. I stand here with great pride to ask my colleagues in the House to pass this Democratic budget which actually finally represents the middle class. What does this budget do? Unlike the President's own budget proposal, the Democrats' House budget protects middle-class families from a tax increase. Our resolution protects 19 million families against the alternative minimum tax this year and creates a reserve fund accommodating a permanent fix. The reserve fund also will accommodate other middle-class tax cuts, including extending the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, the extension of the 10 percent individual tax credit and the elimination of most estate taxes. Compare these middle-class tax cuts to the $500 billion tax increase the President proposed in his budget over the next 10 years. Madam Speaker, this Democratic House is committed to balancing the budget in the next 5 years without raising taxes, and that is what we are going to do here.”