David Obey: “this is not a fight about whether there should be a tax cut. It is a fight about who gets it. There is much in this bill…”

“this is not a fight about whether there should be a tax cut. It is a fight about who gets it. There is much in this bill I support. It is a far better bill than the House originally passed. I was an original sponsor of the child tax credit, which is contained in this bill. I support the education tax credits and child health provisions. But I would remind my colleagues that the fundamental test of any democracy is to fund its activities through a tax system which is fair to each and every one of our citizens. Because this is, after all, a volunteer compliance tax system. We fought a revolution over the principle of fair taxes. This bill, I am sorry to say, fails that test. The most well-off 5 percent of families in the country who make over $110,000 will get seven times as much relief as all of the 60 percent of Americans who make less than $37,000. That is simply not fair. In fact, the wealthiest 1 percent of our citizens, who make more than $250,000 a year, will get more in tax relief than 80 percent of all Americans who make $60,000 or less. That is simply not fair. We can do better. Then if we take a look at the dollar relief in the bill, we see that the top 1 percent, whose average income is $650,000, will get a $16,000 tax break under this bill. But if you are in the middle bracket, if you are in the middle bracket, you will get about $3 a week and you lose half of that because of what it costs you to get a tax preparer.”