Political Quotes

“I believe that we ought to be fair to Mr. Babbitt, and I have misspoken myself. We are not talking about a new tax. The fee or the--excuse me, the term that the Secretary uses is, U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt would put a, not a tax--a surcharge on outdoor-related equipment, and so it is not a tax. Later on now the AP goes on to take the liberty of describing a surcharge as a tax, but Mr. Babbitt has not called it a tax. He is working with, teaming with a wildlife group. And they also do not use the term ``surcharge'' or ``tax.'' They call it a ``user fee.'' This is what I think is interesting. We will talk a little bit about the amount. We will talk about the amount. But listen what they say about a user fee, which Mr. Babbitt calls a surcharge, which the Associated Press calls a tax, and which you and I would probably call a tax because what it means is that an American citizen is taking some money and sending it to government, and that is typically a tax. But they go on to say, make sure that the user fee must not act as a barrier to a product's sale. The user fee must not act as a barrier to a product's sale. So obviously, again, this is a case of companies and small businesses, because we will go through the list, these things are sold by small businesses. These small business people in America just must be making excess obscene products.…”