Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for yielding the time to me. While I support the underlying bill, I want to urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that this bipartisan legislation, the Presidential Tax Transparency Act, can be made in order for consideration and a vote. The legislation is very simple. It is not pages and pages and pages. It simply states that there will be a requirement that the President of the United States, all future Presidents, and Presidential nominees of the major parties publicly disclose their tax returns. For decades, Republican and Democratic Presidents and Republican and Democratic candidates of both parties have voluntarily disclosed this information, but not this President. Now, this tradition began in 1973, with President Richard Nixon who, while under audit by the IRS, publicly released his tax returns and submitted them for review by Congress because there was a mini scandal at that time regarding his claims of charitable giving. He released his tax returns and, shortly after, gave what became a famous speech: ``People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.'' The Joint Committee on Taxation, at that time, ultimately found numerous errors in the President's return, and that he owed about a half a million dollars in back taxes, and he paid them. Now, since then, every President has voluntarily released their tax returns.…”