Date: 2008-04-16
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for your steadfast leadership on this issue. your leadership is really common sense to a system. a city that is. frankly. broken. Washington is broken. You know. there are so many. many examples that we can show that Washington is. frankly. broken. Its stuck in this sort of like a perverse dance. frankly. of taking one step forward to help the taxpayer and 3 or 4 steps backwards in hurting the taxpayer. I would like to give you an example. just one of those examples that when the American people see what is going on here. of course. they say Washington is broken. Of course. they say that there is no common sense in Washington. Look. what are the good moments? One of the fine moments is when the economy starts slowing down. this Congress. on a bipartisan level. got together. and in a bipartisan level made the determination that the way to get the economy moving again was .how. was how? It was to lower taxes. That debate took place. and it was very clear. on a bipartisan level. Congress decided. House and the other party. the. other body. both parties to lower taxes in order to incentivize the economy. It was actually a good moment for this Congress. But then what happened just days after that? Just days after this Congress lowers. taxes on the American people by $107 billion. because we understand that lowering taxes helps the economy. helps the American people. small businesses and families. Just days after that. the majority party comes to this floor with a budget that raises taxes. increases taxes by $683 billion over 5 years. You dont have to be a rocket scientist or a mathematician to understand if everybody agrees. both parties. that. lowering taxes by $103 billion is something that would help the economy. and thats what we did. doesnt it seem logical that days later coming back and passing a budget that increases taxes. not to the level of that. making up for that $103 billion. no. no. no. increases it by $683 billion over 5 years. Of course people look at Washington and say what are you guys thinking? Dont tell me that you are helping the economy by lowering taxes by $100 billion and then. days later. think that we are going to be surprised. we are not going to understand that you then propose raising almost $700 billion on the same taxpayer. that you are lowering taxes because it helps the economy. If there is an agreement. a bipartisan agreement. that lowering taxes by $100 billion helps the economy. which there is. is it that hard to understand that the flip side of that is that if you raise taixes by $700 billion it hurts the economy? Yet thats what this Congress did over the objections of those of us that are speaking here. and many others. but thats what the majority party did. So. again. why is it that Congress has the lowest number. frankly. approval rating since probably these things have been counted? Because they must think we are nuts. because they must think we are totally. absolutely. insane and crazy and have absolutely no idea what we are doing. Again. I may not be the smartest guy in the whole world. but it doesnt take the smartest guy in the whole world. as you know. to understand that if there is a bipartisan consensus that lowering taxes in a year. $100 billion helps the economy. There should be a consensus that raising taxes by $700 billion for 5 years would do just the opposite. Oh. no. because our desire. the majoritys desire to just tax and spend and tax and spend. just. frankly. goes above and beyond any commonsense. any logic. any sense of reality. I just want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for your leadership. because you have not stopped fighting for the taxpayer. for the small family. for families. for small businesses. for farmers. for the people. real life. not D.C. D.C. is broken. Again. thank you for your common sense. Thank you for your fight for the taxpayer. I also need to add to that. One of the people that I frankly most admire in this process is Congressman RYAN of Wisconsin. who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee. who understands the budget better than. frankly. anybody else. and who has taught me so. so much. Mr. CONAWAY brings to this process something that is so greatly needed. which is common sense. I thank the three of you. Look again. yes. frankly the American people have reason to be skeptical. when they see that we lower taxes on one side because we say its in a healthy economy. and then. days later. the majority raises taxes way above that and pretends that its not going to have an effect. hoping that people will not learn the truth. But the problem is that that truth is out there. and peoples pocketbooks are going to be hit really. really hard.