The Senate passed H.R. 8 with 89 Senators approving of the legislation.
Eight Senators voted against the bill: Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tom Carper (D-DE), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Richard Shelby (R-AL). Three Senators did not vote: Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) stated, “First, it doesn’t address the number-one priority: creating good middle-class jobs now. Unemployment remains way too high. This bill should include direct assistance on job creation measures.”
Harkin continued in his critique by stating that there are those who want to “redefine the middle class as those making $400,00 a year when, in fact, that represents the top one percent of income earners in America.”
“The idea that people earning $300,000 to $400,000 a year could not pay the taxes they paid in the 1990’s, when the economy was booming, is just plain absurd,” Harkin said. “But that’s what we’re being told, that people who make $300,000 or $400,000 a year simply cannot pay the same taxes that they would have been paying in the Clinton years.”