John Spratt: “I have sat here all afternoon, and last week through the markup, listening to this mantra about tax increases, all of…”

“I have sat here all afternoon, and last week through the markup, listening to this mantra about tax increases, all of which is a fabricated argument, and could not and cannot avoid the conclusion that to some extent this is a red herring. It's a way of distracting attention from the real problems at hand, a way of avoiding discussion of a $236-billion surplus, which is where our economy and our budget stood in the year 2000, the year before Mr. Bush came to office, the $4 trillion in debt added by the Bush administration over the last 7 years, over median family income which has fallen under the Bush administration, avoiding discussion about a debt-burdened economy, which is losing steam near a recession and a dollar, a mighty dollar, which is plummeting, avoiding all of that so that we can talk about something that is not going to happen. First of all, we made it as clear as we possibly could that we have endorsed, embraced and pledged to see continued the middle-income tax cuts which are included in the 2001-2003 tax cuts. They add up for the renewal over a 5-year period of time to $230 billion. If we follow our budget resolutions we have laid out, we will have a surplus in 2012 of $178 billion. By 2018 the cumulative surfaces will be at $1.4 trillion. If we choose then, and we are not making the decision now, but if we choose then that will offset the extension of most of the taxes, most of the tax cuts that were adopted in 2001 and 2003.”