Donald M. Payne: “Thank you for those remarks. As you know, we are talking about the life of Ron Brown, but there were a number of people.…”

“Thank you for those remarks. As you know, we are talking about the life of Ron Brown, but there were a number of people. I mentioned several of those who lived in my great State of New Jersey who lost their lives on that mountainside in Croatia and return flight from Bosnia. There were other people who worked for the government. As we talked about the fact that all too often it is made trite about working for the government, we hear people saying that Americans should not have to pay taxes. Why should we be involved in such things? What right do we have to take their money? We heard some of that dialog earlier here tonight. Well, because we live in a country that is great. We live in a country where you can get on a road and the road will take you where you need to go, with pavement, with utilities, with lights. We live in a place where you can drink clear water and not worry about having bacteria in it. We live in a place that you can call the authorities or go to a courtroom and find that you can have your cases heard. And that is why it is a responsibility of Americans to have a responsibility. As a matter of fact, at some other time we will get on to this subject, but people make it seem that here in America we are overtaxed. We pay about 29 percent. Japan used to pay 19 percent; they paid 29 percent. In the Western Europe countries, most pay 38 to 39 percent.…”