John Thune: “I congratulate him on offering this motion to instruct because I believe it gets at the heart of this issue, which is…”

“I congratulate him on offering this motion to instruct because I believe it gets at the heart of this issue, which is whether we are going to continue this economic expansion, the job growth that has come with it, the explosion in Government revenues associated with the tax relief that was enacted in 2001 and 2003 or whether we are going to go down the opposite path and increase taxes by, as he said, the largest amount in American history. Now, up until this last year, this budget we are talking about today, the largest tax increase in American history happened in 1993. That was $293 billion in increased taxes that was put through the Congress in that year. What has been proposed this year, through the budget process in the other body, in the House of Representatives, was a $916 billion tax increase, and, as the Senator from New Hampshire has noted, here in the Senate it is a $700 billion tax increase. The only question really before us is whether this conference committee which is going to meet is going to adopt the House version, which is triple the largest tax increase in American history, or adopt the Senate version, which is double the largest tax increase in American history.”