Don Nickles: “I wish to urge my colleagues to vote no on Senator Daschle's substitute. I started to call it the Democratic substitute.…”

“I wish to urge my colleagues to vote no on Senator Daschle's substitute. I started to call it the Democratic substitute. I hope that is not the case. I really truly hope that is not the case, because we passed a bipartisan bill, one that had Democrats and Republicans supporting it. For those people that are saying this bill that was passed is for the wealthy and so on, that is absolutely hogwash. This bill that we passed in the Finance Committee is very family friendly. The bulk of the benefits, over 80 percent of the benefits, are for families with kids and/or education. The child tax credit, for example, starts phasing out with families or individuals that have incomes above $75,000. Personally, I think it should be for all families, but we did not make it that way. I think we should make it for all families. Upper-income people will not get it. So this idea that we are just benefiting upper-income people is absolutely not true. Upper-income people, the highest-income people, do not get the family tax credit. Everybody else does.”