Sheldon Whitehouse Quotes

Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?

Not only have [rich] people like me not been asked to sacrifice, but they have had money [tax cuts] thrown at them.

It takes 100 senior citizens to pay for one tax cut for a fat cat.

There’s a mal-distribution in wealth in this country. Entitlements end up going to the rich anyway. Some of them should be attacked. The ones who rip us off, the ones who get bailed out.

The dirty little secret is that the pool man, who's making $30,000 a year, is subsidizing the million-dollar mortgage for the family whose pool he cleans. No wonder people want to get rid of tax breaks for corporate jets.

Mitt Romney has won the 2012 presidential nomination by promising Republicans that he would end a so-called 'culture of dependency' on welfare - welfare defined as 'free stuff' and food stamps for poor folks, not tax breaks for Big Oil or tax shelters for Bain executives.

I don't know how anyone could vote Republican. It's so obvious that their only interest is keeping the rich rich.

You know who got a Merry Christmas? The richest 1 percent, that’s who. Republicans in Congress made sure of that, protecting billions in taxpayer giveaways. In tough times, Republicans stripped 1.3 million American of jobless benefits when they could not find a job, kicking them to the curb during Christmas…

… what these people feel an enormous urge to do is not just to collect more money for themselves, but they feel impelled to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the programs that working people and the poor survive on…. These people are addicted to greed and money and it is a sickness that is destroying the economy of America.

I think for some, the very wealthiest among us, for corporations, taxes are too low.

The rules of the global economy are rigged against those who have to work to earn a living and in favour of multinational corporations and the ultra-rich.

I have fought so heavily against corporate tax breaks, especially because I've seen our schools in Detroit close down.

As a beneficiary of the carried interest loophole, I've seen firsthand the lack of any difference between the work involved in generating a carried interest and the work done by millions of other professionals who are taxed at the full 35 percent rate.

Democrats single out glaring examples of tax preferences or spending priorities that favor the wealthy and Republicans cry 'class warfare!'

The laws are stacked for the wealthy.

Programs aimed strictly at the poorest Americans are always and forever under assault from a Republican Party that still has not dared to cut spending on programs - like Medicare and crop insurance - that also benefit the rich.

Once again, the Republicans in the Senate have rejected an increase in the minimum wage. They support tax breaks for multi-millionaires, but they oppose helping the working poor to earn a decent income.

When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.

Let's means-test benefits - let's means-test Social Security and Medicare and make the rich pay more for these benefits.

The truth is, Hillary Clinton's ideas create more income inequality. Why? Because bigger government creates crony capitalism. When you have a 70,000 page tax code, you've got to be very wealthy, very powerful, very well connected to dig your way through that tax code.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash.

I had hoped that foreboding economic circumstances would have caused the ultra-rich to think not just of themselves and increasing their own personal affluence. Unfortunately, however, too many of them lack concern, and without this concern, the divisive imbalance will only worsen with recession.

Bush already gave obscene tax breaks to people like me and Warren Buffet, and we are saying it's not fair.

The American people are screaming out saying it's unfair that the wealthiest, the largest corporations who can afford the best attorneys, the best accountants, take advantage of these special tax treatments that the lobbyists have, along with lawmakers, have cooked in the books here.

The tax laws are written by men with considerable net worth, and with little understanding of what wage-earners must do to make ends meet.