30-Something Working Group

30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - April 05, 2006)

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Do you know what else we want as Democrats? We just want the Congress to do what American families all across this country do. They only pay for what they have money to pay for. They pay as they go. Now, there are a lot of families, unfortunately in this country that get themselves into trouble. They run up debt on their credit cards. They end up spending a lifetime hand wringing over how much debt they have because they have paid for luxuries on credit that they didn't have revenue in their household coming in to cover. That is what we are doing here. And there is no end in sight.

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Because I want to illuminate what you just said because actually, we put our action where our words are, because it is not just that we said that we should drop those tax cuts by just a little bit and make sure we could fund port security. Here is the third party validation that we always talk about.

On June 18, 2004, there was an amendment by Representative Dave Obey, who is the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee that Mr. Rothman sits on. He offered an amendment to increase port and container security by $400 million. Republicans refused to allow consideration of that amendment.

October 7, 2004 an amendment offered by Representatives Obey and Sabo and Senator Byrd that would have increased funding to enhance port security by $150 million. Republicans defeated this amendment along party lines.

September 29, 2005, just last fall, there was an amendment which Representatives Obey, Sabo and Senator Byrd, again, to increase funding for port and container security by $300 million; all of these proposing to drop the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans by just a small amount of money. The House Conferees, led by the Republicans, defeated this amendment along party lines.

And March 2, 2006, Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to bring the King-Thompson Dubai port deal bill to the floor, which would have expedited procedures to ensure a congressional vote on the Dubai port deal bill sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat. And Republicans voted against that 197-216. So who is for port security?

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is important to note that this is a matter of priorities. What is sad, and I am the least senior among the five of us, and what I have found the most sad since joining the Congress and joining you all last year, is how far astray we have come from when President Clinton was in office.

When President Clinton was in office and I was in my state legislature in Florida, what I watched Congress debate was what we were going to spend the surplus on. Were we going to use the surplus that we had at that time to shore up Social Security? Were we going to shore up Medicare? We didn't have a deficit. We had a surplus.

And Mr. Meek, I think it would be a good idea for you to get back to really describing the scope of the foreign debt that we have here, because we got you mid map. But we really need to make sure that people understand the stark contrast between what we were able to debate during the Clinton administration and what we are forced to debate now. So I yield to the gentleman.

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just want to give one quick statistic. Here is another third-party validator, the Tax Policy Center. And here is the startling contrast between the tax cuts that Mr. Rothman was talking about that go to the wealthiest few and what the tax cuts have provided for the average working family in middle income America. In 2006, according to the Tax Policy Center, millionaires received an average tax cut of $111,550, while the middle-class American received a tax cut of $750.

When I asked in my town hall meetings, and I represent a pretty middle-income, even middle to upper-middle income district, I have a lot of wealthy communities and a lot of upper-middle class communities and some middle to lower-middle income communities, no matter what kind of room, other than the wealthiest few, that I ask people to raise their hands to tell me whether they got money in their pocket from the Bush tax cuts, maybe in rooms full of several hundred people I will get two or three people that raise their hand.

If this tax relief was benefiting a wide swath of Americans, the broad spectrum of Americans of varied income, in a district like mine you would get more than three hands.

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