Charles Rangel: “For someone to say that Democrats are against any tax cuts, they obviously did not read the substitute. We have $36…”

“For someone to say that Democrats are against any tax cuts, they obviously did not read the substitute. We have $36 billion worth of tax cuts here. The only difference is that we give a clear, no-tax status to those people who have estates that are $4 million tax free and we give relief up to $13 million. The Republicans have most all of their tax cut going to people in higher incomes. So one cannot say that when we look at the substitute, we have a $36 billion tax cut there, that we do not believe in tax cuts. The truth of the matter is that the majority does not believe in a one-dollar increase in the minimum wage, because if they did believe in it, they would have worked out in a bipartisan way how we could bring the President to sign a bill. It is as simple as that. As a matter of fact, if they had just stopped at $36 billion, we could have walked out of here, men and women, Republican and Democrats, going to our home districts and saying, not only did we help those that work every day, even though it is at near-poverty wages, but we gave relief to small employers who may not be able to afford that $1.”