[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 56 (Wednesday, May 10, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H2344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TAX BREAKS NOT WORKING FOR MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS

  (Mr. BISHOP of New York asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, is there any doubt today that 
this administration's first priority continues to be tax cuts for the 
wealthiest at the expense of education, health care and homeland 
security, all of which are being cut to pay for these tax cuts?
  We have been promised that extending dividend and capital gains cuts 
will create a rising tide that lifts all boats. But American families 
know that it takes so much more than a trickle-down effect for tax cuts 
to deliver relief from rising gas prices, soaring tuition and 
skyrocketing health costs.
  If the tax cuts had performed as our friends on the other side of the 
aisle promised, an exploding economy would have offset these strains. 
Instead, we are now burdened with $400 billion deficits, $3 trillion in 
new debt since 2001, and deep cuts to hospitals, schools and law 
enforcement.
  How can we possibly justify tax breaks for millionaires worth more 
than the entire amount President Bush requested for the Department of 
Education and more than twice his budget for the VA? The answer is that 
we can't. We just can't.
  Instead, Americans who need our help the most must get in line and 
patiently wait for the Republicans' tax cuts to make any meaningful 
difference, if they ever do, in their daily struggle.
  Mr. Speaker, middle-class Americans deserve much better.

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