John Spratt: “I have to wonder if our good friend from New York, when he tells his constituents about their benefits, will tell them…”

“I have to wonder if our good friend from New York, when he tells his constituents about their benefits, will tell them that the child tax credit will expire in 2004, that the 10 percent bracket expansion will expire in 2004, that the AMT exemption and that the marriage penalty negation provision will expire in a year. We give with one hand and take away almost immediately with the next. The sun rises and the sun sets. Let me dispel, first of all, one myth about this tax bill, the myth that the President is putting out that this is an itty-bitty tax bill. $350 billion by itself would not be itty-bitty, particularly when you have a deficit as we do. But this is not a $350 billion tax bill. If you assume, as we must, that these sunsets are a sham, and why should we not, because the architects of this bill are all saying, they will be extended, we just put them in there to shoehorn this thing into the budget. If you assume that, then this is what this total tax cut will be, not $350 billion but, in the next 10 years, $1 trillion. That is the result. And since the budget is now in deficit, all of this amount, all $1 trillion, will go to the bottom line and will swell the deficit.”