Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHUMER. OK. Then I will speak for a few minutes.
Mr. President, this debate is very simple. Everybody here believes in all good faith that we ought to permanently extend tax breaks for the middle class. The question on the floor is, Do we want to extend those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires at a time of huge deficit? I would argue vociferously no. I would argue most economists agree that shouldn't happen. I would argue the American people, by 26 percent to 74 percent, are against giving tax breaks to millionaires. Why? It is very simple.
It is not that we are against millionaires. God bless
them. Most of them made their money the hard way. They worked hard. They made the American dream. Every one of us would like to have done that--or most of us. So this is not aimed at being critical of them. But, rather, it says we have two economic realities. We have an economy that under the Bush tax cuts right now--my colleague mentioned unemployment went up to 9.8 percent. That is under these tax cuts.
When the rates were a little higher under President Clinton, we never had unemployment that high. But we would argue: So the middle class needs to continue that break for two reasons. One, it stimulates the economy and, No. 2, middle-class incomes have declined over the last decade. In the first decade under the Bush tax cuts, middle-class incomes declined for the first decade since World War II. Under the Clinton rates, middle-class incomes increased rather significantly. Second, we would say this: But at the same time--this is the conundrum we have economically--we have a large deficit and the question is, How do you reduce the deficit? Again, I think both of us agree we should reduce the deficit. It seems to me, about the best way to reduce the deficit is not to give $300 billion of tax breaks to the 315,000 Americans whose income is over $1 million.
By the way, I would remind my colleague there are 160 million people--my colleague from Alaska has reminded me--160 million people who file tax returns. Only 315,000--by quick math, that is about .03 percent--have an income over $1 million. But in the last decade under the Bush tax cuts, those people have garnered all the increase in wealth, all the increase in income--or just about--a huge proportion of it.
So if we are looking for deficit reduction, should we hurt the middle class? No. Should we stop building roads? In my opinion, no. Should we take money out of Social Security? In my opinion, no. Where are we going to get it? Don't do unemployment benefits which stimulate the economy and mean so much to middle-class people who have been out of work for so long under this regime of Bush tax cuts? No. The best place to get that money--it is not that we want to punish wealthy people. We want to praise them. But they are doing fine and they are not going to spend the money and stimulate the economy. For some reason, 42 Members of this Senate, all on the other side of the aisle, somehow the linchpin of their entire economic policy is tax breaks--further tax breaks--for those who are very wealthy.
Let me remind my colleague that every person whose income is $100 million--there aren't many of them, but they have a lot of the income--would get a $3.8 million tax break a year. The average middle-class person under our plan would get about a $2,000 tax break a year. Is that equivalent? Certainly, the person making $3.8 million isn't going to rush to J.C. Penney and buy that warm winter coat they have been waiting for. No.
So I would say to my friend, it is a bit contradictory to say pay for unemployment benefits but don't pay for tax cuts to the rich. It is also a bit contradictory to say you care about deficit reduction but not when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthiest people.
I am going to be here for the next 2 years to remind my colleagues, every time they talk about deficit reduction and don't spend money on this and don't spend money on that, that they were willing to increase the deficit $300 billion to give tax breaks to people who have over $1 million.
With that, I yield the floor and turn it over--I see my colleague from Utah is here. I kept him waiting yesterday. I am not going to do that today. So I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source