Stephanie Tubbs Jones: “I went to law school, and I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. I thought that if I was a great civil rights lawyer, I…”

“I went to law school, and I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. I thought that if I was a great civil rights lawyer, I could really help the people of America, the people that live in my community. But I should have been a tax lawyer, because had I been a tax lawyer, then I would have better understood how I could help middle-class families by fixing the AMT. If I had been a tax lawyer, I would have understood how I could help people purchase homes and get a benefit from it. Had I been a tax lawyer, I would have understood how fairness operates in the United States of America through the Tax Code, because by the Tax Code, poor people might have a chance, working people might have a chance. I say to my colleagues today, vote for this, vote for this bill. It may not be all that we wanted. And if you think about it, if we hadn't spent so many trillions of dollars in Iraq, maybe there would be a pay-for in this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that today, the House is taking up tax relief for the 23 million Americans who otherwise would be saddled with the onerous alternative minimum tax.”