Political Quotes

“I know we are on the MILCON appropriations bill, but I did not want to lose the opportunity to talk about a pressing issue before the country today; that is, how we will work to resolve the Nation's obligations to its creditors and what the failure of doing that means to the Nation and to each and every American. I rise to ask a simple question of my Republican colleagues: When is an entitlement not an entitlement? Apparently, given the rhetoric and actions of some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, the answer would be that an entitlement is not an entitlement when it benefits an entitled class of wealthy Americans. In the Republicans' ideological haze that is swirling around Washington these days, it is only an entitlement when it goes to the middle-class families, to students, to seniors, to the disabled, to the downtrodden, and the dispossessed. Those entitlements, according to the Republicans, should be on the chopping block. But entitlements to the wealthy can never be on the table, despite the fact that our current Tax Code allows the wealthiest 400 taxpayers in America to pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the average New Jersey family--less than the average New Jersey family.…”