On the recordDecember 12, 2012
There's a lot of disagreement about the future of our country. There's disagreement over how to handle spending--what should be cut, what should be reduced, what should be increased. There's disagreement over how much and when to raise the debt ceiling. These are very important questions. There's a disagreement over whether taxes should or should not go up on income over $250,000 a year. Our friends on the other side in good faith believe that's a bad idea. We know the economic history tells us that the last time the rates were at the level of 39.6 percent, 600,000 new businesses were formed and 23 million new jobs were created, so we think it works. But there's something that everyone says they agree on, and that is that income up to $250,000 a year should not have a tax increase. Everyone on both sides says that when January 1 shows up on the calendar there shouldn't be a tax increase on the middle class people of this country, that their first paycheck on the first Friday of the New Year should not have more taken out of it so as not to hurt our economy or hurt those families. Now, we all say we agree on this. It seems to me the right course is to put a bill on the floor that says exactly that, that says that for income of less than $250,000 a year, the tax rates for every American should stay where they are now and there should not be a tax increase. My friend from Texas says that the majority did that in July. That's not quite right.…
