Political Quotes

“President Trump and the Republican leadership, as we just heard, are talking every day on television, at news conferences, telling the American people how this tax bill that was passed here at 2 o'clock in the morning on Saturday--without any hearings, with no serious debate--how this tax bill is designed to help the middle class and how it was written for the middle class. Unfortunately, I suspect that I will not shock too many Americans by suggesting that what President Trump has been saying is not truthful. This legislation, according to numerous independent studies, will provide 62 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent--62 percent of the benefits will go to the top 1 percent--while increasing taxes on 83 million middle-class households by the end of the decade. Why? The reason is that the tax cuts for middle-class families expire by the end of 2025, while the tax breaks for large corporations are made permanent. We are living in a moment in American history where we have an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality, where the top one- tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, where the top 1 percent owns almost twice as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and, if you can believe it, where three of the wealthiest people in this country--Mr. Gates, Mr. Bezos, and Mr. Buffett--three people own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population. That is where we are right now.…”