Political Quotes

“my colleagues ought to make clear the basis on which the Republicans are denying these families that participation in the tax cut. They are apparently under the impression that Social Security payroll taxes are not taxes but are a voluntary gift that the lowest earning people in America make to the Government. What the Republican bill does is to say that people who get the earned income tax credit will not be eligible on the whole for this other credit. Now the earned income tax credit was something that Ronald Reagan thought well of, but the current group has made some of us who believe in moderation nostalgic for Mr. Reagan from time to time because what they say is this. The earned income tax credit compensates people who have families, by and large, who make 20 and 25 and $26,000 a year and who pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes of any of us because every penny they make is fully taxed under the Social Security payroll tax. And what the earned income tax credit does is offset to some extent the regressiveness of the Social Security payroll tax, and people who get the earned income tax credit, they do not get the earned income tax credit unless they are working or paying payroll tax on all of their income and they are then getting some credit for that less than the aggressiveness. And the Republicans are now saying, ``If that's your situation, you're not a taxpayer.''”