Kerry: Republican floor tactics are 'cynical, craven, and dangerous'

[karynnj]

Here is an article - http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/169977-kerry-republican-floor-tactics-are-cynical-craven-and-dangerous-

Here is a link to his floor speech
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=600211411 and http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=600211524

Strong stuff.

[tularetom]

1. Well, duh! Glad he finally caught on

Now he needs to go tell the president.

[karynnj]

2. "Finally caught on?" He has been there for decades

Listen to the speech. He was the Senator in 2005 that had a website called, RoadblockRepublicans.com.

This is far ranging - listen to his blasting lobbyists putting in the second one starting at about 2 minutes.

[fedupinBushcountry]

3. "Glad he finally caught on"

WTF???? Where have you been for the last 8 years??? Senator Kerry has been talking like this for that many years and more. Lots of what he said in this floor speech he has said over and over for years including in 2003 and 2004 when he ran for president. DUH!!!!!

[karynnj]

4. Transcript from "Thomas"

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.

Madam President, I listened to my colleague just now and I have listened to colleagues over the last weeks and there are a lot of crocodile tears being shed on the floor of the Senate about why we are not doing something, all of which completely ignores the fact that everything we try to do, the folks on that side of the aisle make us take longer and longer and longer than we have ever taken before because they push every single procedural objection possible. Even the most routine thing we try to do on the floor of the Senate requires 60 votes or requires a motion to proceed. The most perfunctory, simple thing requires us to go through every procedural hoop and parliamentary process because they have persistently pursued a strategy aimed at gridlock.

The idea is to make Americans see the dysfunction and then blame it on the party in power and run against them. It is the most cynical, craven, and dangerous policy I have ever seen in the 27 years I have been in the Senate, and I regret it for our country.

There is a reason Democrats are standing, as a matter of principle, against the Ryan budget and against the proposals our Republican friends keep proposing. That is because they are the only party who have consistently stood and said: We are not going to consider everything. We are just going to give you a tiny, little menu, and you have to balance the budget out of spending cuts only. That is all that is in their budget. The only thing in their budget is spending cuts. Twelve percent of the entire budget is all they have put on the table in order to try to do something responsible about the deficit of our country.

We, on the other hand, have consistently said: We will put everything on the table--everything--Medicare, Medicaid, reforms--not benefits. We are not going to cut the benefits on people because we don't have to in order to deal with this problem, but we can reform them. We can certainly be more effective and efficient, and we are prepared to do that. There are a lot of other things we are prepared to do--defense spending, wars, and a whole series of things.

Last week, one of our newest colleagues made a very interesting and I thought revealing observation. The Senator from Delaware, Chris Coons, who balanced budgets in county government, who took cases all the way to the Supreme Court, who has seen decisions made in the business world as well as in the nonprofit world and who is an enormously capable person but new to the Senate, made the observation that some people are actually looking into the language of the 14th amendment and the debt limit in order to learn whether ``there might be some way to save us from ourselves.''

That observation brought home to me how absurd this place must look right now, not just to a new Senator who came here with hopes of getting the business of our Nation done but to the average American, to people who invest in the extraordinary mythology that surrounds this great institution we are all a part of--the greatest deliberative body in the world. We can laugh at that one today. There is an absence of deliberation--a great absence of deliberation--and I think a lot of people are alarmed by the dysfunction they see with respect to this great institution.

It is extraordinary when we have to look at the language of the Constitution to find possible ways to do what Congress and the Senate are supposed to do on their own--take tough votes, look at the tough issues, make tough decisions but, most importantly, do it in the interest of the United States, not in the interest of either party or of some ideology.

Here we are, less than 5 weeks from August 2, the day the U.S. Government will default on its obligations for the first time in its history, and Washington is still playing the same old political game--a dangerous game of chicken--with enormous consequences for our economy and our future in every respect--economic, social, and national security.

I hear this in my travels. Senator McCain and I were in Egypt recently, and we had people turning to us and saying: Hey, how about you guys? Can you get your act together before you are telling everybody else what they ought to be doing with respect to their future?

You are promoting democracy. How is your democracy doing back there in the United States? Working out all right, right now?

Washington is stuck, and it is stuck because we have a few ideologues and some people outside of the U.S. Senate who cower our fellow colleagues with threats of primaries. People are going to run against them if they move off of the orthodoxy of extremism. The result is that nothing is happening. Fear has gripped the Senators who raised their right hand and said: I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Well, everyone here I think acknowledges that defaulting on our obligations would be disastrous for our country. Everyone here simultaneously says they don't want the default to happen. But here we are with a small minority holding the debt limit hostage to an ideological agenda, saying they will not consider an approach that most observers consider indispensable and reasonable in reaching an equitable solution to our crisis.

Frankly, the consequences of not doing something are not far off in the future. Every day that we are here not getting this decision made, we are weakening our economy and we are making our government and, through it, our country look helpless and adrift. The fact is that it is already having consequences with respect to business decisions. Capital is holding back. Businesspeople are reluctant to invest, uncertain of what the budget of the United States is going to look like, uncertain of what kinds of signals we are going to send to the marketplace. Certainty. I keep hearing colleagues say we have to send certainty. But when they look at this chaotic debate, what kind of certainty could any businessperson possibly take from what is not happening in Washington today?

Our friends on the other side of the aisle say they want to create jobs, but Moody's chief economist, Mark Zandi, has said that hiring is only going to resume if we can get our act together and settle this debate, and the sooner, the better. At the beginning of the month, Moody's announced that it might downgrade our country's credit rating if Congress isn't able to come to an agreement by the middle of July. That is a week away. If that happens, I promise you our economic recovery is going to halt in its tracks. Maybe some people want that. I hope not. But today investors are looking at the scene here in Congress, and they are wondering if we are ever going to get it together. And the longer we wait to get serious, the higher the interest rates are going to move. That hurts everyone in America. Everyone who owns a home or runs a small business is going to be squeezed while Congress is in this ideological standoff.

I read David Brooks' column this morning in the New York Times, a brilliant column talking about the unreasonableness of taking things off the table in this discussion.

Recently, 235 economists, including 6 Nobel Prize winners, sent a letter to congressional leadership urging them to raise the debt limit immediately. Not doing so, they said, could have a substantial, negative impact on economic growth at a time when the economy looks a bit shaky, and, at worst case, it could push the United States back into recession. So are we going to listen to 235 economists, including 6 Nobel Prize winners, or are we going to be driven by this extremist position that does not allow for reasonable discussion about what ought to be on the table?

I think this is a dangerous and irresponsible moment in our country. Not raising the debt limit would result in a crisis potentially far more severe than the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. The consequences would include any number of things, from increases in State and local government borrowing costs, increases in corporate borrowing costs, including mortgage interest, declines in equity prices and home values, declines in 401(k)s and other retirement savings, reductions in the willingness of investors here and around the world to invest in the United States, and job losses on a significant scale.

Now, as I have said, I don't believe that is going to happen. But the question is, Are we going to get a deal that hurts America or helps America? If we eat America's seed corn in this deal--by that, I mean don't invest in America's infrastructure, don't invest in education, don't invest in the research and development that is so critical to the creation of new jobs--if all we do is what the other folks in the House said we ought to do by just looking at 12 percent of the budget and cutting spending, if that is all we do, we will eat America's seed corn, and the next generation will pay the price. Without investing in our future, we could face an economic downslide unlike anything we have seen in recent memory.

In 1983, President Reagan wrote:

Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford such a result.

Nearly 30 years later, we are facing that kind of incalculable damage.

The fact is, Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Geithner have already used extraordinary measures to try to keep the Nation from default and keep the economy moving.

Already, Treasury Secretary Geithner has used extraordinary measures to keep our Nation from default. And, these measures have bought us some time to deal with congressional negotiations, but it happens that some Republicans have proven themselves willing to sacrifice our Nation's economy in a misguided attempt to score political points. I know they will protest and say ``we're just trying to solve our debt crisis,'' but the truth is there is more than one way to do that not just their way and particularly not when that way can have disastrous consequences on the economy.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says failing to raise the debt ceiling on time could cause ``severe disruptions'' in the markets. He said:

We should avoid unnecessary actions or threats that risk shaking the confidence of investors in the ability and willingness of the U.S. government to pay its bills.

As of this moment, no one knows for sure how much time our financial markets will give Congress to come up with a solution before severe disruptions could occur. According to a J.P. Morgan analysis, the delay in raising the debt ceiling is likely to negatively impact markets, as investors undertake risk management actions in preparation for a potential Treasury default.

These effects could include immediate liquidity shortages as borrowers attempt to raise additional cash and increase the tenor of their borrowings, large auction concessions especially if Treasury were to postpone an auction, increases in open volatility that cover the June/July period, and general weaker demand for Treasury securities. As time goes on, failure to raise the debt ceiling could touch off a mini-financial panic, perhaps throwing the fragile economy back into recession.

If you don't believe me about moments like this, just look at our history and you don't have to look far. Just look back 3 years to September 2008, when Congress initially voted down Treasury Secretary Paulson's $700 billion plan to provide assistance to financial institutions. Investor confidence was brutally shaken and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index plunged 8.8 percent that day.

If we do not act and act very soon indeed those who lend us resources will eventually demand higher interest rates. Government borrowing will crowd out private investment. A larger share of our Federal budget will be devoted to interest payments instead of productive investments like education, national security, and programs for our elderly and most vulnerable. Higher borrowing costs for American households and businesses will discourage future private investment, lowering our capital stock, reducing our economic growth and depressing our standard of living.

Mr. President, this isn't half as complicated as some have chosen to make it. We are not as far apart as this debate would imply. We can all agree that deficits are too high. We can all agree that we shouldn't be borrowing 40 cents on every dollar that we spend. We even agree that we need $4 trillion in deficit reduction to put us on a sustainable path.

But in the end, this budget debate can't just be about just cutting spending which is all the Republicans have offered. Our future is at stake--literally. Everyone says that job creation and investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and medical research are essential. We need to give the economy the tools to recover. As Ben Bernanke affirmed just the other day, we can't just cut our way to jobs and recovery. The Americans who sent us here understand that and want investment in our future.

I believe there are better choices that we face. This is not half as complicated as some have chosen to make it. In fact, I don't think we are as far apart in this debate, when you talk to a lot of our reasonable colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as some want to imply. Everybody can agree deficits are too high. We can all agree we shouldn't be borrowing 40 cents on every dollar we spend. We can all agree we need about $4 trillion in deficit reduction to put us on a sustainable path. But in the end, this budget debate cannot be just about cutting spending, even though it must include cutting spending.

Everyone has said that job creation and investments in clean energy, infrastructure, and medical research are essential, and I think we need to do the things that would make our economy move. Let me give an example of this. In America today, we are living off of the investments our parents and our grandparents made. The Interstate Highway System didn't just sprout up one day; it was a government program investing taxpayer dollars in building a nationwide road system that helped America to grow and be unparalleled in its strength compared to any other nation in the world. That was a President Eisenhower program.

The truth is that today we are falling further and further behind other nations in terms of our investment in the infrastructure of the future. The United States is spending less than 2 percent of its GDP on infrastructure. Compare that. China is spending 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Europe is spending 5 percent of GDP on infrastructure. They have trains and airports and other things that work and get people where they want to go faster than our trains.

We are looking at a country now that has about a $2.2 trillion deficit in the infrastructure of our Nation. We have 69,000-plus bridges that are structurally deficient. We need to invest in them so they don't fall down like the bridge in Minnesota. We need to invest in our airport structures so we don't have airport delays or potential of collisions in our aircraft.

According to one study, $1 billion in investment in infrastructure results in 18,000 jobs. So at a time when America is begging for more jobs, why would we not be investing in infrastructure in this country? You go to Germany or Brazil, and they are investing huge amounts in their future, and right now both countries are threatening to leave the United States behind with respect to alternative and clean energy investments of the future.

Millions of Americans know we can do a lot better. Frankly, in the 1980s you couldn't find three more ideologically different people than Tip O'Neill, Bob Dole, and Ronald Reagan, but they put politics aside and they saved Social Security. And they didn't capitulate. They compromised. They found common ground. They did it because they knew America's future was more important than either party.

I often hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle only talking about the spending problems of the country.

Madam President, may I ask how much time I have used?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 14 minutes.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.

I often hear my colleagues talking about the spending problem. What they forget about is we had a surplus we created in the 1990s by making the tough decisions. We invested in the future of our country, and we created 23 million new jobs. And in the 1990s, when we balanced the budget--let's not forget that. Some of us were here and made those tough votes, and we balanced the budget, and we created 23 million jobs. Every income level in America went up--every single income level--and we did it at a time when the total relationship of spending-to-GDP was exactly where many of us believe we ought to take it today, somewhere around 21 or 22 percent.

The fact is that it was President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that we couldn't afford and a war that he refused to pay for in Afghanistan and then Iraq--both wars totaling approximately $2 trillion. The tax cuts and the wars account for approximately $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 and going forward.

The facts are clear. The tax cuts President Bush put in place contributed to the deficit, and the revenues have to be addressed if we are going to go forward and deal with this. Federal revenues today--the money the government takes in--is at its lowest level since 1950. We have had a 60-percent reduction in revenue and a 60-percent increase in expenditures, and right now we are at the lowest level of revenue taken in that we have been at since the 1950s, and they are only about 14 percent of the total GDP. The fact is that the last five times we balanced the budget, those revenues were about 19 or 20 percent of GDP. So here we are at 14 percent, we have balanced the budget five times previously, and the revenues were at about 19.5 to 20 percent of GDP. Doesn't that tell us something?

There is another problem we have. It is right here on my desk. We have a Tax Code. The Tax Code has 8 volumes, over 72,500 pages. This is the Internal Revenue Code, 4,052 pages. I would ask any American, do you have your own page in this Tax Code? How many Americans have their own page in this Tax Code? Well, I have got news for you: 72,500 entities--a lot of businesses--have found a way to get their little break in the Tax Code.

Last month, the Senate, by a vote of 73 to 27, sent a clear signal that we ought to start looking at some of these subsidies. This entire Tax Code is riddled with special deals which lobbyists have worked against the interests of average Americans in most cases. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Section 168 in this Code has a special rule for racehorse depreciation. How many folks in America are worried about their racehorse today and the depreciation on it? But they have a provision in here that allows the depreciation of racehorses to go from 7 years to 3 years, and the difference of 7 years to 3 years costs the average American money. The average American is supporting that because it is a foregone revenue. We are giving away the revenue, and we are giving it back to somebody who doesn't fundamentally need it.

The Tax Code includes a definition of 3-year property. Get this: any horse other than a racehorse which is more than 12 years old at the time it is placed in service. I mean, who writes this stuff? Where does this come from? Not only is that a waste of taxpayer money, it makes the Tax Code more complex, and it requires more regulations and more confusion.

A lot of tax lawyers love these eight volumes, but the average American ought to be furious at these volumes because these volumes are stealing America's opportunities in a host of other choices we could be making, such as education, investment in energy, energy independence, taking care of our veterans--doing a whole bunch of things that are substitutes for some of the choices that are made.

Let me give a couple of other examples. Here is a provision. It is included in one of the regulations.

On April 2000, E acquires a horse to be used in E thoroughbred racing. On October 1, 2003, F buys the horse from E and will use the horse in F's horse breeding business. The use of the horse by E in its racing business prevents the original use of the horse from commencing with F. Thus F's purchase price of the horse does not qualify for the additional first year depreciation deduction.

How ridiculous can it get that we are getting into specific cases like that which run contrary to the common sense of average Americans? One has to be able to afford a lobbyist to be on one of these pages.

Last year, more than $3.5 billion was spent on lobbying in Washington, DC. There are more than 13,000 lobbyists trying to influence the legislation in Washington. Believe me, it works. Look at the last 50 years.

Back in 2004 we passed a bill which the New York Times described as including ``goodies for almost every kind of corporation'' and that ``perhaps the most amazing provision might be called the foreign gambler relief act.''

Under prior law, if a person is lucky and they win big at the horse or dog track, their winnings are subject to a withholding tax. It is kind of logical. But now foreigners do not have to pay tax on their winnings. They found a lobbyist and they got it in the Tax Code and we passed it somehow.

Section 872 of the Tax Code excludes from gross income, ``income derived from wagering transactions in certain parimutuel pools.'' It specifically says, ``gross income derived by a nonresident alien individual from a legal wagering transaction initiated outside the United States in a parimutuel pool with respect to a live horse race or dog race in the United States.''

Until I read this I was not absolutely certain what a parimutuel pool was, but I do know a provision like that does not get in here without lobbying. It comes at the expense of a lot of other choices because the problem is all these breaks--whether it is subsidies for oil or subsidies for gas exploration--which made sense 60 and 70 years ago, but here we are with record profits coming into these companies, $35 billion of profit just for the last quarter, 3 months. Yet they get a break. That break comes at the expense of average folks having the school they deserve, having the road they want to ride on properly, and having decent public transportation. Those are the choices and those are some of the things for which we are fighting.

Not only are lobbyists arguing for tax breaks, highly skilled tax lawyers have a history of finding looping holes for corporations to exploit. We use to have a provision in the Tax Code which was finally eliminated that provided a tax credit for synthetic fuels for coal. I found this process questionable and one company admitted it was profitable just because of this tax credit. Some firms getting this credit were simply spraying newly mined coal with diesel fuel or some other substance. We need to work together to find these type of provisions and remove them.

If there is a loophole, someone will find a way through it. I think we all remember how one oil company was getting a tax credit for co-processing animal fat with biodiesel from biomass. We shut that one down but other loopholes have opened.

Last year, we thought that we had seen the end of the ``black liquor boondoggle.'' Paper mills were using a mixture of diesel fuel and a byproduct of the pulping process as an energy source for the mill. The intended purpose of this credit is to produce motor fuels from biomass. These companies were getting a windfall that was never intended. I am now hearing that some companies are still finding a way to benefit from black liquor. I have also heard that some are trying to benefit from this same credit for alternative fuels by adding cow waste and other waste to diesel fuel. This was not the intended purpose of this provision. In past Congresses, I have introduced line-item veto legislation which included tax benefits. These are abuses that we can all agree to end.

For years, we have been trying to repeal subsidies for major oil companies. Just last month, we failed to eliminate $2 billion a year in tax incentives for oil companies. These incentives are no longer needed. We needed to jointly review the Tax Code and remove the deadwood. Some subsidies are no longer needed. And some are completely necessary. The Tax Code has become riddled with special interests. Over the past 25 years, Congress has introduced billions of dollars of worth of special tax breaks, loopholes and subsidies into the Tax Code--making total tax expenditures now exceed $1 trillion.

With the future of our country at stake we have to decide if we want to care for our elderly and educate our children or provide tax breaks for those who do not need them. Would we rather invest infrastructure or allow race horse owners a shorter period to depreciate their horse?

As we consider legislation to increase our debt limit, our colleagues in the minority refuse to even discuss eliminating any of the tax expenditures that these lobbyists have helped enact into law. Not one permanent tax expenditures. I guess they prefer to increase the spending cuts that hurt low and moderate-income families.

I think we need to review the $1 trillion in expenditures and decide what is really needed instead of slashing programs which will weaken our economy. It is time for us in Congress to stop falling prey to corporate lobbyists and stand up for our future. To reduce the deficit we need to make hard choices and we should not be afraid of saying ``no.'' If we do not start eliminating tax expenditures, we will not be able to reduce the deficit without gutting Medicare or Medicaid.

We hear a lot about the Ryan budget, but make no mistake: the House passed budget does not eliminate the deficit. It just makes a series of spending cuts to provide tax cuts to those at the very top even greater than the existing 2001/2003 tax cuts.

And Chairman Ryan may call his budget the ``Path to Prosperity,'' but that is not where its path would take our seniors. At least two-thirds of the over $4 trillion in budget cuts come from programs serving those of modest means. To be clear, the House budget is not about reducing the debt . It is about putting in place Republican priorities--increasing tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing social programs that people depend on.

We should examine all spending and not leave defense spending off the table. For example, we should be cutting programs like the Medium Extended Air Defense System, MEADS, which had a budget request of $406 million for fiscal year 2012 but the Pentagon said was running over schedule and running over cost. Or the F-22 raptor fighter jet, which in 2009 we were able to cut $1,750,000,000 in procurement funds of a plane that was costing too much money and wasn't appropriate for the 21st century wars we are engaged in. We should aggressively go after fraud and abuse, eliminate erroneous payments to health providers, and better coordinate health care for people who receive both Medicare and Medicaid. These dual eligible beneficiaries account for only 15 percent of Medicaid enrollment but constitute nearly 40 percent of Medicaid spending.

Instead of digging more ideological trenches, we should look at the last time we actually achieved a path to fiscal stability. The bipartisan 1990 budget agreement included discretionary caps and revenue increases. It was a real compromise that looked at both sides of our budget equation. And in January of 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the debt would be erased by 2006 and that by 2011, there would be a $2.3 trillion surplus.

Yet somehow, in the years since this real bipartisan success, too many people in this building seem to have forgotten that there are two sides of the budget ledger.

Just look at the balanced budget amendment House and Senate Republican leaders proposed. It caps Federal spending in any fiscal year at a completely unrealistic 18 percent of GDP. It wouldn't just result in unthinkable cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; it would also impose arbitrary limits on the Federal Government's ability to respond to the recession. So the recession could be deepened by increasing the number of unemployed, decreasing business investment, and withholding services needed to jump-start the economy. And yet this same proposal would require a two-thirds vote to increase revenues, making it

nearly impossible to eliminate wasteful tax loopholes or unnecessary tax giveaways.

So let's be realistic. We need to set ourselves on a course to rein in deficits and debt . No one disputes it. To do this, the budget negotiations should include a budget enforcement mechanism--and it can't result in a sequestration of spending only; if a budget enforcement mechanism only focuses on spending cuts, we are only addressing part of the problem. It would slash essential programs while ignoring revenues. That is simply not a responsible long-term budget solution, and it would never get bipartisan support.

For an enforcement mechanism to work, both sides should not want the trigger to occur. We shouldn't be hoping for automatic spending tax cuts or increased revenues. A tough budget enforcement mechanism will force us to make difficult choices, both substantively and politically.

It is time to end the polarization over how to resolve our budget crisis. We can't hide behind global spending caps, unrealistic constitutional amendments, or pledges vowing opposition to tax increases. The cuts that would be required to meet the spending targets of a cap would have to be as drastic as or even worse than proposals included in the House-passed budget resolution.

Spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are driven by factors beyond the programs' control. Under spending caps, their percentage cuts would be bigger than the percentage cut in discretionary programs and they would be subject to automatic large cuts.

We need to think hard about what is fair in America. The only tax President Obama or we Democrats have talked about is on the wealthiest people. Millionaires. People who earn more than $1 million a year. That is about 7,000-plus lucky families and individuals in the United States. All we are doing is talking about asking those who benefit enormously from the strength of our economy and the strength of our military and all the things we need to do--we are just asking them is it too much to go from 36.9 percent up to 39.6 percent, which is where they were in the year 2000, before President Bush gave them a tax cut we could not pay for.

It is not as if they have done badly these last 10 years. The fact is, more wealth has been accumulated in the hands of the smallest part of America, the top 1 percent, than at any time in America's history. The wealthy are far wealthier than when we had no income tax and when we had the great names of the 1920s and 1930s and the industrial revolution: Pierponts, Morgans, Carnegies, Mellons, Rockefellers, and so forth. They are much wealthier today. Yet they are paying far less of their share than at any time in modern history.

Here we are with a deficit problem. They are talking about cutting Medicaid. They are talking about cutting Medicare. They are talking about cutting education loans, making it more expensive for kids to go to college--the one thing we desperately need in order to compete with the rest of the world, people who have a college education. I do not hear anybody in America saying make it harder for my kid to go to college, but that is what they are doing in their budget. That is exactly what they are doing. But they stand up adamantly and say: No way will we allow people earning more than $1 million a year to pay anything additional into the system. It is just wrong. It is morally wrong. It is repugnant in this country we are condoning the institutionalization of a larger and larger gap between the haves and the have-nots, between the people who have already gotten their brass rings and the people who are trying to reach it. That is not the American story. I believe we need to fight to have a balanced approach.

President Obama and the Democratic proposals I have seen and we have talked about--and I hope people will hear more about in the next days--give a tax cut to about 98 percent of America. The only people we are talking about asking to kick in and give us some more revenue are people earning the most.

If a person is earning $500,000 a year, they would not pay any additional tax on their first $250,000. On the next $250,000 all they would pay is $12,000 of additional tax. Let me ask--no, I will say I know this. There is not one business person, there is not one millionaire for whom $12,000 will change one consumer purchase, one decision of investment--not one. All this talk about how it will slow down the economy or hurt America is just bunk. It is not true.

We need to have a real discussion. We need to have a real effort that I think matches the greatness of this institution with this moment. This can be the world's greatest deliberative body, but we need to put all of these issues on the table. We need to debate them openly. We need to have the courage of our convictions and vote up or down and do what is needed to put our country on track because right now we are losing countless investment opportunities, countless job opportunities. If we do not make the right choices we are going to have a very difficult time living up to the promise all of us hope to live up to in our time in this office.