Political Quotes

On the recordApril 6, 2011
Yeah. Take it from Medicare and give them a tax break. And, by the way, the top tax bracket in the United States of America right now starts at $375,000. So if you make $27 million or $375,000, you're still paying the same tax rate. What I did was say, okay, let's make the taxes fairer. I said, starting at $1 million--that's earning in 1 year--45 percent tax rate. And it would ratchet up, $10 to $20 million, $20 to $100 million, $100 million to $1 billion, and then a $1 billion tax bracket. And you know what? There are Americans who have made $1 billion last year. The top 20 hedge fund managers, an average of over $1 billion a year. One guy made over $5 billion in 1 year. I'm saying those billionaires, that top tax bracket, 49 percent taxes. And guess what? That is lower than the tax rate in all the Reagan years. I'm under Ronald Reagan's highest tax bracket. It's fair. This is not about punishment. It's not about revenge. It's certainly not about jealousy. It is about fairness in our tax system. And we would have plenty of money here. We wouldn't have to cut Medicare, of course we wouldn't. We wouldn't have to cut Medicaid, the poorest people off their health care. We wouldn't have to threaten seniors with cuts in Social Security benefits. And we could fund those job training programs to put people back to work. We could even fund infrastructure programs that put people on the job, or green energy programs that make America a leader in the world.…
Said by
Janice Schakowsky
Democratic · Illinois

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