Political Quotes

“last week, the House Speaker--Speaker Boehner--and President Obama and his administration were both calling for comprehensive tax reform as part of a large budget deal. Obviously, today, that seems to have lost some momentum, and I wanted to start this afternoon by saying tax reform is too important to abandon after 48 hours' worth of discussion. To his credit, Chairman Conrad recognizes that, and certainly that is what I heard this weekend when, similar to the distinguished Presiding Officer, I was home and had the chance to travel across eastern Oregon, stopping in small towns. I think there is a keen awareness that it is not possible to cut our way out of this economic challenge; that we also have to grow. We have to grow. We have to make growth-oriented changes in tax law. That is what the Conrad budget clearly offers a wide berth to do. In fact, I am of the view that progrowth tax reform, for example, is one of the few ways to generate revenue that both Democrats and Republicans will support. When you put people to work--and we have millions and millions of our fellow citizens out of work today--those are folks who can, in the private sector, start paying taxes again. That is what happened after the last major tax reform bill in 1986. In those 2 years--the 2 years after major tax reform--6.3 million new jobs were created in the private sector. We have an opportunity to do that again, and the Conrad budget offers a wide berth in which to do it.…”