[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10875]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            NO RAISING TAXES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Burton) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I have listened to my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle talking about the need for us 
to get our economic house in order.
  The President down at the White House is saying that we have to raise 
taxes because we have a revenue problem and we need to bring in more 
money. The fact of the matter is that this last year we had a 7 percent 
increase in taxes coming in. We had a 7 percent increase in taxes 
coming in even though we have the unemployment problems that we have. 
The problem was we spent 11 percent more than we took in.
  So the problem we have right now is that the White House is spending 
too much money. We have to cut spending. We're bringing in more money 
than we did last year, last fiscal year, but we're spending way more 
than that. So we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem.
  Now, they also said that we ought to tax the rich more. The fact is 
that the top 20 percent of wage earners in this country pay over 85 
percent of the taxes. Now, if they raise that tax up, you're taking 
more money out of the people's pockets who can invest in companies, in 
business and industry that will create jobs and products that we can 
export around the world.
  I don't understand why we can't get that point across very clearly to 
the American people. If we want to cure the unemployment problem, which 
is now 9.2 percent, what we have to do is get the private sector in a 
position where they can create more jobs. That means we need to lower 
taxes, not raise them, like Ronald Reagan did. We need to cut 
government regulations, so that the private sector won't be strangled 
by the regulations in this country, and then let the free enterprise 
system work. If we do that, unemployment will go down; there will be 
more people working. Therefore, there will be more taxpayers paying 
into the treasury. Therefore, the deficit will go down and we won't 
have the economic problems we have today.
  But raising taxes right now on any part of our society will only 
exacerbate the problem. And if the President has his way and we end up 
raising taxes--and I'm not going to vote for it--then what's going to 
happen is we're going to see unemployment get worse and worse and 
worse.
  We've got to do what's economically correct, fiscally responsible, 
and that is to cut spending and to not raise taxes, especially in this 
climate. And if we do that and free up the free enterprise system, this 
country will get back on track very quickly.

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