Pelosi: 'Congress Has Ensured That 23 Million Middle-Class Families Were Not Hit With a Tax Increase'

December 19, 2007

Washington, D.C. - Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement this evening on House passage of the Senate amendment to H.R. 3996, the Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007. The bill, which protects 23 million middle-class families from being hit by the alternative minimum tax, now goes to the President for his signature.

'Today Congress has ensured that 23 million middle-class families were not hit with a tax increase.

'But this is not the version of the AMT-relief bill that the New Direction Congress wanted to pass. Two times this year, the Democratic majority passed bills to protect taxpayers from the AMT that were fully paid for and did not add to the deficit. But Republicans in the Senate obstructed these efforts to pass $50 billion in debt to our future generations.

'Fiscal responsibility and accountability are core Democratic values. We are committed to pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending. Yet at a time when middle-class families are struggling with the harsh effects of the Bush economy, we cannot hold hardworking Americans hostage to the obstructionism of Republicans.'