Political Quotes

“Mr. President, here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. In my view, we have got to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry that has been actively destroying our planet. And I will be introducing an amendment to do just that. Finally, this bill has a tax provision in it. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is good news because we have many, many large, profitable corporations in this country, including companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike, which, in a given year, make billions in profit and don't pay a nickel in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise $313 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying more than $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources or staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy.…”