Political Quotes

“God bless America and God bless the democracy that involves public participation--a concept at the core of what our American government is all about. Such public participation was not very evident in the process that produced this bill. This bill was conceived behind closed doors with no public participation, no public hearings, no public involvement. It was designed to continue what is, in essence, a legal scheme of tax avoidance for the world's largest corporations by channeling some of their profits through foreign tax havens. This bill is basically a product of meetings between the Treasury Department and those who benefit from the tax subsidy. The lobbyists have met with the Treasury Department, but the Treasury Department official responsible for the bill was unwilling to answer questions in public from even the members of the Committee on Ways and Means. I voted for this bill in committee. I am committed to promoting international trade, but it was a very contrived circumstance that produced this bill, and the arrogance and the deception associated with this bill as well as the additional information that I now have about this bill cause me today to reconsider my position and to oppose strongly H.R. 4986. This bill is not actually the bill that our committee considered. Rather this is a bill that the lobby has massaged for another few weeks after the initial bill was approved in the Committee on Ways and Means.”