Political Quotes

“for most of my time here in the U.S. Senate, I have been on the Senate Finance Committee, which deals with our Tax Code. For most of my time in the House of Representatives, I served on the House Ways and Means Committee, which dealt with our Tax Code. Quite frankly, I thought that there were three guiding principles in regard to tax reform that both Democrats and Republicans felt were essential and that, really, I thought were beyond being controversial. That is, if we are going to have tax relief, the focus must be on the middle class; that in today's economic circumstances, we would not want to have tax reform add to the deficit; and that we need to use an open process--a bipartisan process--for tax reform so that we have the opportunity for all stakeholders to understand exactly what we are doing so that we don't have any unintended consequences. As I look at the bill that is being brought to the floor by the Senate Budget Committee, it violates all three of these basic principles. First, with regard to providing relief to middle-income taxpayers, the Joint Committee on Taxation has looked at this bill, and that is the objective scorekeeper. Some may not like what they say, but we have to acknowledge that these are the objective numbers that look at exactly who benefits from the tax provisions. It is an interesting analysis that they do about those who are in the top income tax brackets, and we are using about half a million people.…”