Political Quotes

“I stand before this body today to talk about the omnibus spending package the Senate will be considering over the next few days. I have some concerns related to this omnibus spending package that relate to a program called PILT. It is an acronym with which most Americans and probably even most Members of Congress are not familiar. It stands for payment in lieu of taxes. The program was developed to help those States, including my home State of Utah, in which the vast majority of the land is owned by the Federal Government. Beside me is a map of the United States. In red we can see all of the land that is owned by the Federal Government. As we can see by looking at the map, most of the land west of the Rocky Mountains--more than 50 percent, in fact--is owned by the Federal Government. Very little of the land east of the Rocky Mountains is, by contrast, owned by the Federal Government. Being from a public land State presents some interesting, very significant, very substantial challenges. Among those challenges is the fact that the Federal Government has deemed this land, has legislated this land as being beyond the ability, beyond the authority of States and their political subdivisions--including counties and local taxing jurisdictions--beyond the ability of the States and their subdivisions to tax. So we can't collect property tax revenue from any of that land.…”