Tim Kaine

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the right way to set our priorities as a nation.

If we fail to maintain these important investments, we could lose our position as a global leader in research and technology.

The families we represent are looking to us to end the constant artificial crises.

Senator Kaine, when he was Governor, put a particular focus on pre-K.

We should be investing more in our children, but sequestration right now is really taking us in the wrong direction.

My Democratic colleagues want to tax more and spend more.

We have serious long-term deficit and debt challenges that we need to tackle.

The idea of tripling the standard deduction

The Federal Government, and particularly the IRS, should maintain the highest ethical standards and should be held fully accountable for any failure to do so.

So as we continue this debate, I encourage my Republican colleagues to be open to working with us on tax reform that puts the middle class first and our economic and fiscal strength first.

Our schools need to prepare our workers--of all ages--to compete for 21st century jobs.

It is one of the many reasons I believe the House budget is wrong for our country and our economy.

Debt reduction can be achieved by cutting spending or by raising taxes or by adopting a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.

Senate Democrats believe the path of austerity that long-term cuts from sequestration lead toward is not the right direction for our country.

Investing in education, infrastructure, and high-value research and development to help our economy grow, keep us globally competitive, and make it easier for businesses to create jobs.

The case for austerity in a time of economic weakness is simply wrong.

When the economy is struggling, government should act to make things better for the middle class and most families by investing in jobs and economic growth.

We ought to make some changes, and that will be beneficial to our country and to, I think, a more rationale set of priorities.

Until then, I think it would be very difficult to explain a plan to middle-class Americans that asks them to sacrifice but gives the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations a pass.

Tax reform has to be fair to the middle class, and that means we will need more revenue from those who can most afford it.

It seems to me that if history teaches anything, it is that those who carry the view that their end justifies extreme means are usually on the wrong side of history.

They are not using the tax increases to reduce the deficit.

We all know sequestration was never intended to be implemented, so we should be focused on replacing it, not trying to make an unworkable policy just a bit less bad.

History has shown us that austerity is not the right way to boost economic growth in the short term.

A very specific claim in an academic paper cited frequently by many of my Republican colleagues on this committee to make the case for short-term austerity was found to be flawed.