Patrick Leahy: “I rise today to oppose the tax reconciliation bill being considered by the Senate today. I believe Vermonters and all…”

“I rise today to oppose the tax reconciliation bill being considered by the Senate today. I believe Vermonters and all Americans deserve tax relief, but we need to have a fiscally responsible tax package that benefits everyone. We do not need one that is so large, so likely to result once again in budget deficits, so full of budgetary gimmicks, and so skewed toward the wealthy. If we are serious about passing a tax cut bill to provide needed relief to all Americans we should be lowering the tax rate for low- and medium-income people, making the child tax credit fully refundable, eliminating the marriage penalty tax immediately, creating an R&D tax credit, increasing IRA and pension contributions, and allowing for greater college tuition credits. Unfortunately, we are delaying all of these important tax relief components in order to shoehorn a massive rate reduction for the wealthiest Americans into this bill. It also pays for this massive tax plan at the expense of needed investments in Social Security, Medicare, education, the environment, and paying off the national debt. I am one of five Senators still in the Senate who voted against the Reagan tax plan in 1981. We saw what happened there: We had a huge tax cut, defense spending boomed, and the national debt quadrupled. The tax plan was popular but it was wrong. America should not move backward in that direction. This tax plan is too large.”