Political Quotes

“I have been extremely critical of the agreement struck between the President and the Republican leadership. I have spoken out against it and I voted against cloture just yesterday. It is one thing to be critical of a proposal; it is another thing to come up with a better alternative, and I think I have done that today. I believe the amendment I am offering is a significant improvement over the agreement struck between the President and the Republican leadership, and I hope very much we can get strong bipartisan support for it. First, as I think most Americans appreciate, at a time of a recordbreaking deficit and a $13.7 trillion national debt, it makes very little sense to be providing huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country. This amendment ends--it ends--all the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans beginning on January 1 of this year. Over the long term, this amendment would devote half the revenue raised by this provision--by eliminating the tax breaks for the top 2 percent--to reduce the deficit.”