Political Quotes

“Madam President, I thank my leader on the Finance Committee on the Republican side. I appreciate all the work he has done to try to keep this economy going, and we ought to listen to him. Let me just say that the President and congressional Democrats and Republicans agree that small business is the key to a job-based recovery. As the President himself says, small business creates about 70 percent of all of our new jobs. If we fail to prevent the marginal rate hikes, small businesses will be especially hard hit. The Joint Committee on Taxation concluded that half of the flowthrough small business income would be hit by the reimposition of the top two brackets. Ironically, this is what all the resistance from the other side is about. They insist on raising the top marginal rates on small businesses by up to 17 to 24 percent--all of this during a time when we ought to be going the other way and assuring small businesses that they should take steps to grow without paying a tax penalty. There is a bipartisan group that recognizes the merits of preventing these tax hikes on small businesses. But I think the President and the Democratic leadership need to see the light. We are talking about somewhere between 750,000 and 800,000 small businesses, where 70 percent of the jobs are created. If we do not handle this right, we are going to have a pretty long time of an economic system that really does not work in this country.…”