Political Quotes

“this is the legislation that we received this morning. On principle, nobody in this House should vote for legislation which he does not understand, has not seen, and contains hundreds and hundreds of pages with many provisions that we know nothing about. But Mr. Speaker, we do know some of the aspects that we are going to be asked to vote on. We do know that in a time when millions of elderly people are unable to pay for their prescription drugs, when they are paying more and more for private insurance to cover what Medicare does not cover, we do know that we are going to be asked to cut Medicare by $115 billion. That is wrong. We also know there are significant cuts in the Social Security Administration and in veterans programs. That is wrong. Mr. Speaker, in order to pay for the cuts in Medicare, in the Social Security Administration, and in veterans programs, what the Congress is proposing is to provide huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, unfortunately; precisely the people who do not need it. The wealthiest 5 percent of Americans will receive almost half of the tax cuts. The upper 20 percent will receive over 70 percent of the benefits. The upper 1 percent, when this plan is full-blown, the upper 1 percent will receive more benefits from this package than the bottom 80 percent. So the people who really need the help are not getting the help. The people who do not need the help are getting more help than they are entitled to.”