Concurrent Resolution On The Budget For Fiscal Year 2008

Floor Speech

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (House of Representatives - May 08, 2007)

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Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great concern for our economy. I rise because we hear about the debt and certainly my concern is that if we are not careful, we will make the debt even worse than it is now because an economy can turn south with overtaxation. Right now we are headed to tax increases that concern me a great deal.

In Nebraska, the average tax increase per taxpayer is almost $2,400 a year as proposed. More than that though, I am concerned about small businesses, farmers and ranchers who face tax increases whether it is the estate tax or other taxes.

When I have a small business person come up to me and say, we need to do something about the estate tax, the death tax because it will devastate their business, that gets my attention.

My concerns are that we have available capital in our economy because, with available capital, we see good things happening, whether it is investing in the stock market or whether it is expanding a small business or whether it is putting money away for a child or grandchild heading to college. The fact is, available capital does great things, and that is why I rise with extreme concern about our budget because the budget calls for a tax increase, and that is what concerns me so much because tax increases are bad for economic growth. Tax increases lead to a downturn in the economy.

I not only believe we can do better than this proposed budget, but we must do better.

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