Political Quotes

“the Senator from Arizona has just left the floor, unfortunately. But I did want to make two points. He has referred to something called the death tax, which is what we call the estate tax, which was developed by President Teddy Roosevelt way back when. What he forgot to mention is that this estate tax--and as I understand it, the Senator from Arizona, if he had all of his wish fulfilled would repeal the estate tax completely--benefits only the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of the population. So for all of the concerns about the onerous impact of the estate tax, it benefits three-tenths of 1 percent. Mr. President, 99.7 percent of the families will not benefit at all from the repeal of the estate tax. The second point is, if the estate tax were completely repealed, the estimate is over a 20-year period it would add about $1 trillion to our debt--$1 trillion--which, like the war in Iraq, is simply not paid for. So when people talk about fiscal responsibility, I find it a little bit hard to understand how they could dump another $1 trillion into our national debt, which benefits only the top three-tenths of 1 percent of the population, which means it will be the middle class and working families who are obliged to have to pay that off over many years. Sometimes when our friends on the Republican side talk about fiscal responsibility, I am not quite sure where they are coming from.”