Political Quotes

“Mr. President, there has been a great deal of discussion about what the appropriate tax rate should be for large corporations-- so-called C corps. That certainly is important because we want to make sure that those large businesses are creating jobs here in the United States and not overseas in order to take advantage of lower tax rates. But let us not forget the importance of providing tax relief for our small businesses. It is our small businesses that create the majority of new jobs in this country and that are really the economic engines for so many of our communities. Small businesses make an outsized contribution to our Nation's economy. According to the Small Business Administration, they employ nearly half of all workers and generate two out of three net new jobs each year. Nationwide, small businesses generate nearly half of our private nonfarm GDP and one-third of our Nation's export value. My State of Maine is truly a State of small businesses. Sixty percent of our workforce--that is, nearly 300,000 of our residents--are employed by more than 141,000 small businesses. I spoke at length earlier about the amendment, and I know that the chairman of the Budget Committee has a lot of work to do tonight. So I won't repeat the comments I made earlier. Let me just say that my amendment would create a deficit-neutral reserve fund to support small business tax relief while preventing wealthy taxpayers from sheltering income from taxation at the appropriate rate.…”