Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with saying that taxation is the price that we pay for a civilized society. And today we need the money.

As a matter of fact, I was in a meeting 2 days ago at CEDA--that's the organization in Chicago and Cook County that services low-income families--trying to figure out how to help some of my constituents get their homes heated, because it might be snowing in Washington, but it's cold in Chicago.

The telephone rang. Somebody said, Could you take a call from the President? I said, Which President? They said, Well, the President of the United States. And I said, Of course, I'll take it.

I got on the phone and the President said to me, Danny, we need to pass this bill, and we need to pass it because even though it's cold, it's going to get colder; and there are going to be people who don't have any unemployment compensation benefits, and they can't pay their heating bill. There are going to be people who want to send their kids to college, and without the tax credits for college tuition, they won't be able to pay the tuition.

And I said, Yeah, but, Mr. President, what about those people way up at the top that are getting all of this money?

He said, Well, there might be an opportunity to reduce that.

And I'm looking forward to voting on the Pomeroy amendment so that we can reduce some of that money that they're going to keep in their pockets, put it into the Treasury so that we can help the poor people in Chicago who are cold and don't have any heat.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source