Date: 2015-03-24
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the balance of my time. When we are talking about the budget and priorities. the chairman of the committee left out one of the biggest areas of "spending" in the Tax Code according to the Congressional Budget Office. and that is the amount of spending that goes through a whole range of tax breaks. If you look at this chart. you will find that what the Congressional Budget Office calls "tax expenditures" exceed the amount spent each year on Social Security. on Medicare and Medicaid. on defense: $1.4 billion in tax breaks. Now. some of those are for good policy purposes. but some of them and a lot of them are there because some powerful special interest got some special break that helps him and nobody else. and this Republican budget doesnt touch one of those in order to reduce the deficit. not one. It doesnt close one of those $1.4 trillion in tax expenditures to reduce the deficit. What it does do is make life harder for people who are working hard every day. It increases the tax burden on middle class Americans and on those who are working to join the middle class. It raises the cost of going to college by increasing the cost of student loans. It increases the daily costs of seniors. who are going to face higher prescription drug costs and higher fees for copaymentsseniors. students. working class families. I started this discussion by pointing out that we have seen worker productivity grow. American workers are working harder than ever. but their paychecks have been flat. Our Democratic alternative budget will address that issue. This Republican budget makes the situation worse. It doesnt do anything to help hardworking Americans get ahead. It says. Work harder. but get less. You are going to take home less. and you are going to get hit with higher taxes because they take away certain important tax benefits for middleincome and working people. Why in the world we would want to pass a budget that makes it harder on hardworking people today and that disinvests in the future of America tomorrow. I dont know. There is a much better way to do it. We will present an alternative tomorrow which does that. It says we should have a Tax Code that is not rigged in favor of making money off of money. but that actually favors people who earn a living through hard work every day. Our current Tax Code actually gives better tax rates to unearned income than to earned income. That doesnt make sense. We propose to provide important tax incentives and benefits to hardworking Americans. whereas the Republican budget just provides another tax rate cut for folks at the top on the failed theory that it is going to trickle down and lift everybody up. That is not the way to accelerate economic growth. The way to accelerate economic growth is to make sure all hardworking Americans can bring back bigger paychecks to provide for their families. to make sure their families can achieve the American Dream. That is an economy in which everyone moves forward together. as opposed to an economy that says to the folks at the top: you have made it. we are going to give you even more tax breaks. and once you climb the ladder of opportunity. it is okay to lift the ladder up after you. That has not been the way our country has worked from the beginning. Lets reject this budget. There is a better way. and we will have a chance to debate that tomorrow. I yield back the balance of my time.