[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 18, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3323-S3324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        MIDDLE-CLASS TAX RELIEF

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, President John Kennedy famously said that 
``a rising tide lifts all boats.''
  The economic policies of the past 8 years may have lifted the 
privileged few to greater wealth, but they left the rest of our country 
to drown in shallow waters. With this new President, with this new 
budget, we begin to turn the page. President Obama's 2010 budget honors 
the middle class. It honors the middle-class values of hard work, 
responsibility, and opportunity.
  After years of falling incomes and rising costs across the board for 
health care, education, groceries, gas, and retirement, this budget 
finally begins to bring the American dream back within the grasp of 
middle-class families once again. We are cutting taxes for 95 percent 
of working families and ending the irresponsible tax giveaways the Bush 
administration doled out to the superwealthy. Ninety-five percent of 
American households will get to keep more of each paycheck to save or 
spend on a mortgage payment, a doctor bill, a new car, or maybe a used 
car. We will expand the child tax credit for all families and increase 
credits available for larger families, who are more likely to live in 
poverty. We will help families afford the rising cost of college by 
making a $2,500 tuition tax credit permanent. We will help to encourage 
a new generation of savers by providing automatic enrollment in 
retirement accounts and expanding tax credits to reward the choice to 
save for retirement. Also, because we understand that every dollar the 
Federal Government invests comes from American taxpayers, we will 
ensure that high-level transparency and accountability exist. The 
taxpayers deserve this, and certainly taxpayer money deserves to be 
transparent and accounted for.
  After 8 years of misplaced priorities, corporate greed, and failed 
oversight, we are facing a severe economic crisis. And that is an 
understatement. Senior

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citizens are delaying their retirement, workers are losing their jobs, 
and families are losing their homes. Although this hour is difficult, 
President Obama's budget sets the path toward recovery, and when our 
economy does recover, we will ensure that this time not just the yachts 
but all boats are lifted with the coming tide.

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