Tim Ryan: “This is a $207 billion tax cut for people who make less than $1 million a year, the kind of people that need the tax…”

“This is a $207 billion tax cut for people who make less than $1 million a year, the kind of people that need the tax cut. This is a tax increase, in order to pay for the bill, a tax increase of $207 billion for those people who make more than $1 million a year. This is very simple math. We are not being irresponsible with this substitute. We all support getting rid of the marriage penalty. We all want to encourage marriage through the Tax Code. We do not want to penalize anybody for getting married. But to sit here and say that this is somehow a tax increase on middle America, on average Americans, is not telling the whole story. This is a tax cut for people who are married and make less than $1 million a year. These are the people who are paying increased property tax and who are experiencing tuitions that have gone up by 15 percent, increased sales taxes, and health care costs that have gone up by 15 to 20 percent a year. These are the people we are trying to help here, and the Democrats are in support of that. But we do not want to go out and borrow money and put it on the next generation. You borrow money, you have to pay interest on it. This is revenue neutral, so that when we have the challenges we need to face down the pike with Afghanistan, with Iraq, making sure our troops have the proper equipment, then we will be able to answer that call.”