Political Quotes

“Thank you for your good work on this amendment. This will be the third bill that we have amended on it. Mr. Chairman, seldom has a day gone by recently without a headline about some American company that is running for the border to avoid its tax bill. Indeed, today's New York Times has ``Patriot Flees Homeland,'' ``Drug Firms Make Haste to Elude Tax,'' and an excellent piece in Fortune magazine and The Washington Post that Ms. DeLauro referenced by Allan Sloan, entitled, ``Positively un-American tax dodges.'' It all gives new meaning to the term ``sunshine patriot'' when some corporation renounces its citizenship and claims it is a citizen of the Cayman Islands or of Bermuda, where it does little or no business other than tax evasion. The willingness of corporations to renounce their citizenship and leave America behind, at least in name only and at least when the tax bill is due but not when the desire for a government contract is there, has been recognized in the Senate Finance Committee, where Senator Wyden will conduct hearings next week on the best legislative approach to put a stop to this. But we can do something today to put a stop to what are called ``inversions,'' which are truly perversions of the Tax Code. As Mr. Sloan writes, ``Inverters are deserters.'' Today, Members can respond to this desertion by denying them government contracts.…”