Political Quotes

“just weeks before the election, the Republican leadership has proposed an $80 billion bundle of tax breaks, and has asked the American people to pay for these breaks by dipping into future Social Security surpluses. I have worked my entire professional life to improve the fairness of the tax system--first in Oregon and now as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Unfortunately, the proposal before us today represents a scatter-shot collection of inefficient and poorly written tax breaks. For example, the so-called ``marriage penalty reduction'' gives further tax benefits to those married couples who currently pay less in taxes than they would as single taxpayers anyway. Yet other couples, who have lower incomes and do face a significant ``marriage penalty'' will get no relief at all. In total, this bill gives the top 2 percent of all taxpayers an average tax cut $1,709 a year. The 160 million taxpayers who represent the working poor to the upper-middle income (about 60 percent of taxpayers) will only receive, on average, a $34 cut. This is unacceptable. To make matters worse, rather than paying for the cuts as required under our budget law, the Republicans scheme targets the Social Security surplus. We know the baby-boomers' retirement is a serious threat to the federal budget and economy in the near future. We also know that we cannot assume our budget surpluses are going to last.…”