Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This bill is just the next segment of Republican Tax Distraction Day. Certainly, we should focus on misconduct, on delinquencies, from whatever the source. But here, on Republicans Tax Distraction Day, they are about distracting attention from their failure to address the real problem with reference to delinquencies and misconduct, and that is a problem that they have just shown total indifference about. For anyone who was listening even a little bit last week, world news around the globe focused on something called the Panama Papers, 11.5 million files explored over the course of an entire year by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists detailing how some people, especially the very wealthy, have used the secrecy of an offshore tax haven in Panama to avoid paying their taxes and, in some cases, illegal money laundering by organized crime and other forms of official corruption. This isn't just an American problem, but there is no American exceptionalism to it either. It is an international problem. Our European allies have responded to the Panama Papers by initiating new efforts to try to get at this problem of tax abuse. And the truth of the matter is, this is just the tip of the iceberg with this 11.5 million papers because it is only about abuse in one of a number of secret tax havens. But, of course, it did not attract universal attention.…”