On the recordJuly 29, 2011
There's something missing in this entire debate. Over the course of the last 30 years, in the 1970s, if you would have seen the real income for the top 1 percent, it accounted for about 9 percent of real income. Today the top 1 percent accounts for 25 percent of real income. The top 400 wealthiest people in the United States of America pay a tax rate of 17 percent, while the fellow in Youngstown, Ohio, is paying a much higher tax rate. The sky is falling, and the Republican Party wants to make all these huge decisions about how we need to fix our country. We need the wealthiest in our country to become patriots and step up to bat and help us solve this problem. Everyone here is being asked to sacrifice. The military, the middle class, the parents trying to send their kids to college with Pell Grants, the schools that get title I, all are being asked to sacrifice but for the top 1 percent of the wealthiest people in this country. It is absent from this debate. It is irresponsible for us to continue this process without asking the wealthiest in the United States of America, who have been blessed to live in this country, to help us solve this problem. ____________________
Source
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