Jeff Bingaman: “both the House and the Senate are working on what is likely to be a final tax bill for this Congress. As we go about…”

“both the House and the Senate are working on what is likely to be a final tax bill for this Congress. As we go about considering tax bills, I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will be thinking about the long-term economic effects of the legislation. Let me start, of course, by making a distinction that should be obvious to all of us who work around here. That is the distinction between tax bills that are paid for and tax bills that are not paid for and that instead obtain the revenue for the tax cuts from the surplus that we anticipate. I agree with the President that if we do a tax bill this year--and I hope we are able to do a tax bill--that we will pay for the tax bill, that we take whatever revenue is required to make those cuts in taxes, and that we will find revenue in the current budget with which to do that. I do not think the American people want us to go ahead and begin to spend an anticipated surplus which we have not even realized as yet.”