[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 171 (Monday, December 31, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H7478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FISCAL CLIFF

  (Mr. ELLISON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, many years ago our friends on the 
conservative side of the political aisle told us that if we cut taxes 
for the wealthiest among us, what would happen is that they would get 
more money which they would use to invest in plant and equipment, and 
then all the rest of us working class and middle class folks would 
benefit by rich people having more money because then they would hire 
us and we'd have a stronger economy. They put this plan into 
implementation in 2001 and into 2003, and what followed was the most 
anemic decade of job growth that we have seen in many, many, many 
decades. If you can contrast it with the 1990s when the tax rates were 
actually higher, we had a much more robust economy. In fact, when 
President Clinton handed President Bush the reins to the government, he 
handed him, also, a surplus.
  The fact is the conservative experiment based on the ideas of a guy 
named Arthur Laffer and others has failed. They don't work. They're 
wrong for this country. It's time for us to have some balance and to 
pay the bills of this country, and that means taxes.

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