Congresswoman Brown made the following statement:
“The American people have spoken, and they do not support the Republican version of reverse robin hood – robbing from seniors, students, and the elderly, and even jeopardizing our military and our veterans – just to maintain tax breaks for the rich. I ask them -- what happened to shared sacrifice? The Senate has passed a bill which would allow us to cut taxes for 95% of the American people. Yet what is known as the “People’s House” is once again holding up a deal! The Senate has already passed a bill that President Obama has said he would sign, and the House of Representatives needs to take up that bill and pass it as soon as we return to Washington next week!
Following Tuesday’s elections, it is obvious that the American people made it clear that they support bringing down our nation’s deficits and setting the country back on a sound fiscal path – one that does not ask working families and those struggling to get by to bear the burden of deficit reduction, but instead asks the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of taxes.
We didn’t get in this budget mess overnight and we can’t fix it overnight either. My grandmother always said you have to ease your head from the lion’s mouth, and I am vehemently opposed to any plan that balances the budget on the backs of the poor, our nation’s veterans, our children, or the elderly. And the Republican budget plan would do just that -- slash our social safety net while cutting tax rates for the wealthy.
That makes no sense. I believe that we need to begin by restoring the Clinton era income and estate tax rates before we talk about drastic cuts in social programs for the poor or for Social Security or Medicare. When we did that under President Clinton, the economy not only improved, but he left office with a budget surplus!”