Political Quotes

“Republican tax legislation in 2017 was completely misguided. Despite our best efforts, the bill passed in the middle of the night. It was completely partisan, not a single hearing. There wasn't a single Democratic amendment, and this is what that bill looked like. As I repeatedly pointed out, the Republican taxpayers gave 572,000 taxpayers, with incomes over $1 million, more in tax cuts than the 90 million Americans who had incomes below $50,000 a year, making income inequality worse in this country. In all, 43 percent of the benefits of the GOP bill went to the top 5 percent, households with incomes over $319,000 per year. It is why I came down to this floor repeatedly to oppose that tax bill. Since 2001, the United States of America has borrowed $5 trillion from the Chinese for the privilege of giving tax cuts mostly to the wealthiest people in our country. We never paid for any of it. We said the tax cuts would pay for themselves. They never have paid for themselves. Instead, we issued bonds, and we issued debt. The Chinese bought most of that debt to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America. Over that period of time, we actually made income inequality worse during a time when income inequality is the highest it has been since 1928. We have had no economic mobility for 50 years for the bottom 90 percent of Americans--for 9 out of 10 Americans.…”