19 Oct 2005 Congressional Action: Peter DeFazio on Taxes and Drowning

On October 19 Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) addressed the House of Representatives:

Madam Speaker, April Fool’s Day has come early to the United States House of Representatives. The Republicans are in charge. They control everything, and in the last 5 years our debt has increased 60 percent to $8 trillion. That is $27,000 for every American. Well, not for every American, only for working Americans because the rich are exempt from taxes.What they are talking about here, the hard-working Americans, the only people who got a pay raise last year, the people who earn over $1.3 million a year.

Madam Speaker, 99 percent of the people in this country had their real incomes go down last year, but not that group. That is who the Republicans want to protect here. It is trickle-down economics. They say we need it now more than ever. How else are we going to recover from Hurricane Katrina? They want to give the wealthiest among us, the top one-tenth of 1 percent, the millionaires, tax breaks, and they will trickle-down on America.

Well, the people of the Southeast have been trickled down upon. And, in fact, some of them drowned because of the incompetence of these people.

Note: “Congressional Action” is a blog feature highlighting an official activity undertaken by or in Congress, very often chosen at random, to provide an educational snapshot of our Congress at work. Opinions and facts represented in this feature do not necessarily represent the views of Amy Ridenour or The National Center for Public Policy Research, nor is this feature intended to express an opinion on any measure under consideration by the Congress.