Political Quotes

“my colleague Senator Kerrey, with whom I am pleased to cosponsor this Sense of the Senate resolution, has it exactly right. The payroll tax is regressive. The statistic he quoted bears repeating. Among families that pay payroll taxes 80 percent pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes. If--and I say if--we are going to have a tax cut look no further than the payroll tax. Albert Hunt, writing in today's Wall Street Journal, agrees, noting that for most families it is ``the most onerous levy. . ..'' Even excluding interest income, the Social Security Trust Funds will generate $698 billion of surpluses over the next 10 years. That is just about enough to finance the 2 percentage point reduction in the payroll tax that Senator Kerrey and I have proposed in our comprehensive Social Security rescue plan. In contrast, the operating budget will only have a $32 billion surplus over the next 10 years--and no significant surplus until 2006. Finally, maybe we shouldn't be considering any tax cuts. Those surpluses can easily evaporate, even in the absence of a recession. Growth of one percent for the next two or three years --rather than the 2 percent projected by CBO--just about wipes out surpluses for the next several years.”