Don Nickles: “I want to give a little different vantage point on some of these issues, and then maybe other colleagues will wish to…”

“I want to give a little different vantage point on some of these issues, and then maybe other colleagues will wish to speak. I have heard kind of a continual part of the debate offered by our colleagues in opposition to this resolution that this is a terrible budget resolution. They say it is bad, worse, evil, preposterous, and absurd. Wait a minute. At least we have a budget. Frankly, budgets are not easy. How much money are we going to spend, and how much are we going to tax? You always have a lot of people who want to spend more, maybe tax less, maybe tax more. I have heard a lot of comments that maybe we should be taxing a lot more. In the budget resolution, we assume the tax cuts we passed in 2001 would be continued in years 2011, 2012, and 2013. They would sunset at the end of 2010. I guess my colleague on the other side would like to have those tax cuts made tax increases in the years 2011, 2012, and 2013. That is about half of the tax cut that is in this bill. We need to do that. We need to address those tax cuts sometime between now and 2010. I doubt it is going to happen this year. If it does--I guess a bill could be offered and, if it is, it is debatable. I doubt that will be part of the tax bill that will be proposed under the reconciliation procedure. In the President's proposed reconciliation growth package, he would like to have that happen quickly so we can get the economy moving. The economy is not moving very quickly.”