[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19049-19050]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX CUTS

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, last weekend I voted for legislation that 
would extend tax cuts for all Pennsylvanians. This legislation also 
included a continuation of expired unemployment insurance, a series of 
tax incentives that have created jobs in Pennsylvania like the R&D tax 
credit, the biodiesel tax credit which is essential to companies like 
Hero BX in Erie, the new markets tax credit and the payroll tax credit 
known as the HIRE Act. I also voted for permanent extensions of the 
enhanced child tax credit

[[Page 19050]]

and earned income tax credit and the expanded adoption tax credit that 
I included in the health care reform law, all of which place money back 
into the pockets of working people across the Commonwealth.
  According to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, out of 6.5 
million filers in the Commonwealth in 2008, 98 percent had adjusted 
gross income below $250,000. There is a consensus in Congress to extend 
tax cuts for these families. We should pass the middle income tax cuts, 
renew the job creation tax cuts and preserve unemployment insurance. We 
can then have a debate about the upper income tax breaks without using 
middle-income families and those laid off through no fault of their own 
as political bargaining chips. However, a long-term extension of tax 
cuts for upper income taxpayers, multimillionaires and billionaires, is 
not fiscally responsible for one reason: it adds hundreds of billions 
to the deficit without creating jobs or stimulating economic growth.
  In recent months, I spoke to both business owners and economists to 
get their views on how Congress should handle the expiring tax 
provisions. What I learned is that certainty and consistency are needed 
when the economy is in such a fragile condition. We must reach a 
compromise. At most however, this might entail a short-term extension 
of upper income tax cuts and other ideas that could bring certainty 
without unduly increasing the deficit.

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