On the recordNovember 18, 2011
I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. As to the gentleman's complaint that this is all because we haven't taxed the rich, my goodness, in the last Congress, under the control of your party, you extended all of those tax cuts for everyone. And the fact of the matter is that the top 1 percent of American families pay 38 percent--38 percent--of the personal income taxes in this country today. {time} 1250 That, by the way, is up from 34 percent in 2001. So all of this can be on the table when we have a discussion about how to balance the budget. All we're debating here today is the principle of whether or not we should balance the budget and looking at the past history where we have not, indeed, balanced it but six times in 50 years. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West), who is not only a member of the House Armed Services Committee, but a great advocate for fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget.
