Levin Floor Statement on Republican Plan B

WASHINGTON – Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) today delivered the following remarks during floor debate on the so-called Republican “Plan B”:

“This is an important moment. These bills move the nation dangerously closer to the edge, with only 11 days before our nation would go over the cliff. They make finding common ground far more difficult with only 11 days left. These bills are not a plan. They're a ploy. They are bills to nowhere. They undermine the trust that is so essential for an agreement.

“The Republicans claim that letting the tax rate go up from 35 percent to 39.6 percent on income over $1 million is not a tax hike because it would happen on its own. But then they say that if the tax cut would go up on income below $1 million by happening on its own, it would be the biggest tax increase in history. That is patently inconsistent. Far worse than hypocrisy is the way they design their tax provision. For those with incomes over $1 million, they provide a tax cut of at least $50,000. They raise only one third of the revenue contained in the speaker's discussions with the White House and far less than what was proposed by the president.

“They would raise taxes on 11 million middle class taxpayers through their failure to continue the education credit. They also hurt millions of other middle class families with their failure to keep the improvements to the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. And there is total silence, indeed stone hearted silence, on two million unemployed workers looking for work who would lose their insurance immediately on December 29th. Silence on the 27 percent cut to doctors treating Medicare patients.

“And in a deeply cynical move, the Republicans have decided to offer another bill to put off some of the sequester cuts to defense, and they pay for it with deep and ugly cuts to important programs impacting seniors, kids, and disabled Americans. The Republicans are tying themselves into knots, but in doing so they are tying into knots the chances for our nation not going over the fiscal cliff.

“I urge my colleagues to vote no on these bills that take us backwards, that undercut trust, that increase the chances of going over the fiscal cliff.  This is not a plan, it’s a ploy.” 

###