WASHINGTON -- Alan Grayson (D-Florida) wants everyone to know that he is not in favor of extending the Bush cuts for the wealthy, which would average out to about $83,347 a year for each person in the top 1 percent of the U.S. income bracket. To drive his point home, he made a list for lawmakers on the House floor Wednesday night of the many ways those "high and mighty" individuals making an average of $1.4 million a year will be able to use that extra cash.
"Here's one possibility: they can buy an $83,000 Mercedes Benz E-Class car, not just once, but every single year for the next decade," he said. "And each year, when they get tired of their brand new Mercedes Benz E-Class car, they can just give it to somebody 'cause they can afford another one. They can give it to a spouse, a sister, a son, a daughter -- anybody. Every single year for the next 10 years, the Republican tax plan is to give millionaires enough money for a Mercedes Benz."
Other things rich people can buy with those tax cuts, Grayson said, include a $64,000 Hermés bag, a bottle of Chateau D'Yquem wine from 1787, 20,000 jars of "their favorite mustard" Grey Poupon, and 800 luxury cigars, each of which they could light with a $100 bill.
Grayson pointed out that President Obama's proposed tax cuts for the middle class, by contrast, will be received by unemployed people and "needy parents who need the money in order to pay the mortgage, pay the rent, pay their car payments, their credit card payments."
A better idea, Grayson concluded, would be to take that hundred billion dollars a year that would be saved by not extending the tax cuts and to use it to create jobs.
"Do the math: we have 14 million people in this country who are unemployed, and we have 13 percent unemployment in my district," he said. "Here's an idea: let's take that hundred billion dollars and give three million Americans a job. Let's give three million Americans a working wage, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work, and that will revive our economy."
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