The Power to Tax is the Power to Destroy

Floor Speech

Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, ``The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would take more demand out of the economy and put business in a further hole.''

That's what the President said in 2009, but that was then and this is now. If Congress doesn't act, Americans will face higher taxes when the clock strikes midnight on December 31 of this year. The President's solution is to raise taxes on some. That would eliminate 700,000 jobs in our country; 60,000 of those would be lost in my home State of Texas. The tax increase will cost the average American a year's worth of groceries--$4,000.

Madam Speaker, almost half of Americans pay no Federal income tax at all. What we need are more taxpayers, not more taxes. We need to renew the so-called ``Kennedy-Reagan-Bush tax cuts.'' No tax increases on Americans. Because the power to tax is the power to destroy, and the last thing we should do is raise taxes in a recession.

And that's just the way it is.

Source