Political Quotes

“Today is tax day. People all across America are heading to the post office to get that all-important 'April 15' postmark. OK, not everybody waits until the last minute, but there are enough procrastinators among us that this is sort of a rite of spring. The first week in Washington brings the cherry blossoms. The 15th of the month brings long lines near midnight in front of the main post office just a few blocks from the floor of the Senate. For some taxpayers, 2007 was a very good year. Huge fortunes were made on Wall Street by people who correctly bet against the housing market, and some of those of the very wealthiest people were given huge tax breaks that the middle class never saw. But for the people who live in all of those homes, those homes that Wall Street people were betting against in some sense, 2007 was a very tough year. The home ownership rate has actually fallen over the past 6 years, both nationally by a slight amount and close to 2 percent in the Midwest. What is extraordinary about this fact is that it came during a period of the lowest interest rates since the Eisenhower administration. With the economy expanding, with interest rates at record lows, home ownership should have expanded. Instead, it shrunk. The reason is another trend that has received too little notice by the Nation's newspapers and the Nation's media: economic growth, simply put, has not benefited most Americans.”