Political Quotes

“listening to the President's State of the Union speech and the Republican leadership in Congress, I have been struck by the false choices and misplaced priorities that have been presented to the American public. We heard pledges from the Presidential candidates on the campaign trail in the year 2000 to save the Social Security surplus and put it in a lockbox. The reality of the President's 2005 budget proposal is that he feels it is more important to reward those who need help the least, instead of correcting, for example, the looming crisis in Social Security. Perhaps, a cynic would say, because it does not explode until after the expiration of the next Presidential term. Rather than protect future retirements for American workers, this administration would instead borrow more from the Social Security trust fund to finance tax breaks for people who already have gained the most. But the most disingenuous, insidious, and destructive of all of these policies to American middle-class families is the refusal to deal with the alternative minimum tax, which has become a cruel penalty on middle America. This tax was established 35 years ago after a study revealed that there were 155 people who paid no Federal income tax at all despite having an annual income, in today's dollars, of over a million dollars. This led to the alternative minimum tax passed in 1969. It was designed to ensure that a few ultra-rich people at least paid something.…”