Frank Pallone: “I want to yield to my other colleague from California and stress that this evening part of the argument that I have been…”

“I want to yield to my other colleague from California and stress that this evening part of the argument that I have been trying to make is not only that the Republican House leadership has refused to bring up an aviation security bill, but by contrast, they have instead last week brought up this so-called economic stimulus package with all these tax cuts that go primarily to corporate interests and wealthy people. I think we estimate that of the money that is given back in tax breaks in that Republican economic stimulus package that was passed last week, very narrowly, by two votes, I think, of $100 billion in tax cuts in the next year, 2002, $70.8 billion benefits corporations and $14.8 billion benefits affluent individuals. So here we have where two-thirds, I guess, of the money that they would like to allocate with these tax breaks is going to corporate interests, and then at the same time they will not pass a bill on aviation security because those same corporate interests refuse to spend the money or make a commitment to do the aviation security. It is part and parcel of the same thing. Where are the priorities?”