Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday I spoke on the floor about the need to restore revenue as part of our deficit reduction efforts. I explained that I have sent a letter to the members of the Joint Select Committee, now crafting a deficit reduction plan, with seven ideas on how to address our revenue shortfall in ways that reduce the deficit, protect economic growth, and ensure that the sacrifices which are necessary to achieve our budget goals are shared broadly among the American people. Together, these proposals would reduce deficits on the order of $1 trillion over 10 years. Today I want to go into greater detail on two of those ideas to address loopholes and tax breaks that are as damaging to our budget as they are unfair to working families. One proposal would stop corporations and individuals from using offshore tax gimmicks to dodge the taxes they owe. The other proposal would close a loophole that gives corporations a huge tax break when they award stock options to their executives, effectively using the hard-earned tax dollars of American families to subsidize the paychecks of CEOs and other top executives. Let's begin with the goal here, deficit reduction. Budget experts tell us we cannot close our budget gap with spending cuts alone. Revenue must play a role. These two proposals can help. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has estimated that the use of offshore tax havens by wealthy U.S. taxpayers costs our Treasury around $100 billion a year.…”