Paul Tonko: “Yes. Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for bringing us together this evening for an hour's worth of discussion.…”

“Yes. Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for bringing us together this evening for an hour's worth of discussion. Obviously, I think we need to stay extremely well focused, laser sharp in our focus on what's affordable and what return we get for the spending that is being called for for tax cuts. Now, I know that, as you pointed out, when we saw the Bush tax cuts for which we borrowed from China to pay for, we saw that there was very little return coming from that investment. The analyses that have followed those tax cut years indicate that we just simply did not get that trickled down. However, conversely, with the Obama tax cuts that were part of the Recovery Act, which was the largest single middle-income income tax cut in this Nation's history, the strength that came to the economy was very much measured. We saw where that effort to assist middle-income families paid great dividends. There were those efforts made to stop the bleeding of the recession. People began to spend in their regional economies. People were spending on those day-to-day necessities. And so I think it was beneficial to our American economy, certainly to our individual States' economies, and certainly to the regional effect that it had. So I think we can make a very strong case about investing in the middle strata, in that income demographic that will allow for a great return.”