[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12495]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               EVERYONE SHOULD SACRIFICE FOR OUR COUNTRY

  (Mr. RYAN of Ohio asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, there's something missing in this 
entire debate. Over the course of the last 30 years, in the 1970s, if 
you would have seen the real income for the top 1 percent, it accounted 
for about 9 percent of real income. Today the top 1 percent accounts 
for 25 percent of real income. The top 400 wealthiest people in the 
United States of America pay a tax rate of 17 percent, while the fellow 
in Youngstown, Ohio, is paying a much higher tax rate.
  The sky is falling, and the Republican Party wants to make all these 
huge decisions about how we need to fix our country. We need the 
wealthiest in our country to become patriots and step up to bat and 
help us solve this problem. Everyone here is being asked to sacrifice. 
The military, the middle class, the parents trying to send their kids 
to college with Pell Grants, the schools that get title I, all are 
being asked to sacrifice but for the top 1 percent of the wealthiest 
people in this country. It is absent from this debate.
  It is irresponsible for us to continue this process without asking 
the wealthiest in the United States of America, who have been blessed 
to live in this country, to help us solve this problem.

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