Political Quotes

“If I might interrupt for just a moment, you raised a very, very important point about the fate of the American middle class and of the extraordinary benefit that has grown for the top 1 percent. This is where the 99 percent comes in. Let me just show you this chart. It has become one of my favorites. This chart is about the growth of income. Down here on the bottom are the bottom 99 percent of Americans and the income that they have seen since 1979: virtually no real growth in the income of the working men and women, of the middle class of America. So, if you look at these lines, this is the top quartile; this is the middle quartile and the bottom quartile here: no growth or just a little tiny growth. Incidentally, most of that comes because now both the husband and wife are working, not because just one of the wage earners has seen it. This top line, Marcy, is the 1 percenters. We can see, over the last 25, 30 years, the 1 percenters have done very, very nicely, and there are many reasons for this. One, they are very productive. They've been able to find good opportunities and to make the most of them. We wouldn't deny anybody that opportunity to become very, very wealthy in America if they play by the rules. I know, a little later, you're going to talk about some who have not played by the rules and who have become extraordinarily wealthy. But if you play by the rules, you ought to be able to do very well in America. Yet what we're talking about here is tax fairness.…”