Congressman Pat Tiberi Radio Address
 November 2, 2007

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, I’m Pat Tiberi, and I have the privilege to represent Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, which encompasses all of Delaware County and parts of Franklin and Licking Counties in Central Ohio.

In case you needed a friendly reminder, this weekend marks the end of Daylight Saving Time. Early Sunday morning, clocks will fall back from 1:59 to 1:00 A.M.

Trust me when I say that you’re going to need the extra sleep. As a direct result of all the time Democrats in Washington have wasted playing political games with our highest national priorities, some of you may be hit with a tax increase that isn’t even supposed to apply to you.  

I’m talking about the Alternative Minimum Tax -- AMT, for short, -- which was created in the 1960s to ensure the nation’s wealthiest earners paid an income tax. Of course, it won’t surprise you when I say that Congress failed to make it so that the  law would adapt to the changing times, so now, because of inflation, middle class taxpayers are being hit by the AMT.

To put in perspective the reach of this erroneous tax, in 2010, the AMT could hit every married couple in the United States making $75,000 a year. And with no personal exemptions and deductions for children allowed, the AMT represents the cruelest of tax hammers.

And if we don’t do something right now, 72,000 people in my district, and an estimated 25 million households nationwide will pay, on average, an extra $2,000 in taxes in the months ahead.

For working families preparing for a winter where they will pay more than they ever have to heat their homes and fill their gas tank, that’s real money.

We do not have any more time to waste on this. Believe it or not, in just a few short weeks, the IRS will begin printing next year’s forms and if we don’t have a one-year fix signed into law by then, it could delay 50 million people from receiving $75 billion in refunds.

The best thing we can do right now is enact a one-year patch that prevents this awful tax increase, but to do that Democrats want to raise taxes on other people. These are just more job-killers at a time when our economy is stretched to the limit trying to ward off the effects of a housing dropoff and a credit crunch.

For the last year, Democrats have been pledging to fix this problem, but now with the political season around the corner, they’d rather play games with your wallets than actually get something done.

When you think about it, it’s incredible that even with all that Democrats haven’t been able to get done this year – on challenging issues such as lowering energy prices to the most basic of responsibilities such as passing our annual spending bills – they may still find a way to raise your taxes.  Only in Washington.

Thank you for listening.