[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 139 (Monday, September 19, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S5708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REDUCING THE BUDGET DEFICIT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today President Obama laid out a commonsense 
plan to substantially reduce the budget deficit. I congratulate 
President Obama for his vision. Last week he presented the country with 
a roadmap to reduce our jobs deficit, a proposal to create nearly 2 
million jobs and reduce unemployment by a percentage point. Today he 
has also offered a pathway to reduce our budget deficit--not only the 
jobs deficit but a budget deficit. It is a concrete strategy to cut the 
deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade and to do it 
fairly.
  The plan calls for shared sacrifice for all Americans, including 
those who can best afford to help. It calls on those who have benefited 
from the tax policies that sunk this country deeper and deeper into 
debt to help get us out of this debt.
  Americans know shared sacrifice is the best path to fiscal 
sustainability. All the polls indicate that Republicans believe that, 
Democrats believe that, and Independents believe that. They believe 
many of the richest few should pay more, and one of the richest of all 
of them, Warren Buffett, agrees. That is why the President has proposed 
the so-called Buffett rule, that no American making more than $1 
million a year should pay a lower tax than this Nation's middle class.
  This would apply to the top three-tenths of 1 percent--that is all, a 
small group of Americans--but they are the richest of the rich just 
like Mr. Buffett. Warren Buffett believes it is unfair that he pays a 
lower income tax than his secretary. This is what he said:

       If you're in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity, you owe it 
     to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.

  Actually, it is more than 99 percent; it is 99.7 percent. There are 
about 22,000 people in this country who make more than $1 million a 
year--this is net income--yet paid less than 15 percent of income in 
taxes. The top 400 earners in this country, all of whom make more than 
$110 million a year, pay a small percentage of their income in taxes. 
They pay a smaller share than plumbers and teachers and factory 
workers. More than anyone else these millionaires and billionaires 
benefit from these tax cuts that contributed $3 trillion to our 
deficit. They helped plunge this Nation into a financial hole. Yet 
congressional Republicans believe the middle class and seniors, not the 
millionaires and billionaires who enjoyed trillions in tax breaks, 
should bear the burden of getting us out of that hole.
  A balanced approach to reducing the deficit means those who benefited 
the most from policies that created our deficit should also help solve 
the deficit crisis we have. A balanced approach means everyone pays his 
or her fair share. It means middle-class seniors and those who can 
least afford it will not bear the heaviest burden. So I commend 
President Obama for insisting on basic fairness as we address our 
deficit problem.

                          ____________________