Date: 2010-12-16
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chair. after much deliberation. I rise in opposition to todays legislation. To me. this has never been about the wisdom or necessity of compromise. Like most of my colleagues. I understand the need for compromise. and I fully appreciate the predicament the President found himself in. While Democrats have been fighting to ensure tax rates do not go up on 98% of Americans. Senate Republicans have made it abundantly clear they are willing to raise taxes on every American this January unless they get a bonus tax break for the wealthiest in our societyand provide a taxcut bonanza to a handful of superrich estates. In order to break the stalemate. the President concluded he needed a deala deal that had to balance two of our Nations very real but competing imperatives: the need to accelerate economic growth. and the need to reduce our national debt. Some elements of todays legislation strike the right balance. In particular. the middle class tax cuts. unemployment benefits and Recovery Act credits for working families are both economically justifiable and likely to achieve their intended effect. Unfortunately. other provisions significantly miss the mark. According to the Congressional Budget Office. the $89 billion spent extending tax breaks for upper income earners is unlikely to create jobs. Moreover. I have significant concerns about the structure and long term consequences of the payroll tax holiday. But the tipping point in this package is the estate tax. In an era of $1 trillion deficits. with our national debt approaching $14 trillion. barely two weeks after the publication of the bipartisan Fiscal Commissions "Moment of Truth" report. does anybody really think we should be borrowing $23 billion from China to give the wealthiest 6600 estates an average tax break of $1.7 million a year? Think about it. $23 Billion. For the wealthiest 6600 estates a year. In a nation of over 300 million people. Without any benefit whatsoever for job creation or economic growth. I would say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that if we cant look this moment squarely in the eye and conclude that now is not the time to be giving the top three tenths of one percent of Americans a multimillion tax break. we are clearly not serious about tackling the monumental fiscal challenges we face. And I would remind my colleagues that these fiscal challenges are not theoretical. Earlier this week. Moodys warned that todays legislation increased the likelihood of a downgrade to the United States TripleA rating over the next two years. Bond prices have fallen sharply and yields now sit at six month highs. If were not careful. the bond market could easily take away what todays legislation aims to provide. Many of my Republican colleagues supporting todays legislation profess a commitment to fiscal discipline and balanced budgets. but turn a blind eye to deficit spending so long as it arises from tax cuts. This is not coincidence. The rationale for the inconsistency has been succinctly explained by conservative activist Grover Norquist. who once proclaimed: "I dont want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." After starving government. these same Republicans will undoubtedly be back in the 112th Congress demanding debilitating and draconian cuts in priority investments like education. clean energy and biomedical research. This playbook is as predictable as it is misguided. Mr. Chair. we simply cannot afford to borrow billions of dollars to perpetuate wasteful and unwarranted tax breaks for our wealthiest citizens at a time of unprecedented and unsustainable national debttax breaks that do little for job creation and even less for the economy. I accept the need for a deal. But for our children and our grandchildren. I firmly believe there is a better deal to be had.