Political Quotes

“Hearing the Senator from Texas, I started humming the theme to ``Jeopardy,'' while stating lots of these things in the form of a question. It does occur to me it is absolutely certain there was a reason why this was not called a tax when it was presented to the Congress. The reason is tax hikes are unpopular. Tax hikes are especially unpopular when they are directed at the American middle class. Tax hikes are especially unpopular when they are directed at the American middle class, when they are presented by a President who ran specifically on a campaign of not raising taxes on the American middle class, which, of course, nearly all candidates for President will promise and in this case did promise. So, no, it is not by any means an accident that this happened--the fact that language, consistent with 100 years' worth of jurisprudence, language that was used in this law, created a penalty. There is a very clear distinction between a penalty under Federal law and a tax under Federal law. A tax under Federal law is something that is an obligation, a generalized obligation to fund government; whereas, a penalty is something that involves both a requirement under Federal law and a provision exacting a payment as something that occurs in response to noncompliance with that requirement. So no, this was not an accident at all.…”