Political Quotes

“I agree in principle with my good friends on the other side of this issue. I agree with my good friend, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), that it was wrong what Stanley Works did to leave Connecticut, to save some tax money, and to relocate their corporate headquarters in Bermuda, and move much of its production operations overseas. I agree that we ought to amend the Tax Code to punish firms that deliberately relocate to take advantage of foreign tax shelters. But while I agree in principle with what is driving this discussion, I think we all understand that while we are entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own set of facts. And I would say to my friends on the other side, it is the facts that get in the way of this debate. The facts are that Accenture is not a corporate inversion. The General Accounting Office said that. In fact, Accenture is a U.S. business. It is a partnership in Illinois; it employs more than 25,000 people, virtually all of them are Americans. The fact is that this is an American team of companies that we are talking about. It is a good team of major American firms, firms like Raytheon, Dell, AT&T, Sprint. Mr. Chairman, 330,000 U.S. jobs are involved in this team, 35,000 in Texas, 30,000 in California, 16,000 in Virginia, 14,000 in Florida, 13,000 in Massachusetts, I would tell my very good friend from Massachusetts. These are American jobs, and all of the work is going to be done in the United States.”