Marty Meehan Quotes

That’s what Republicans are about—giving rich people tax breaks.

I don't want to remember 2005 as a year that the government heaped unnecessary burdens upon American families. Stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich, while increasing the deficit, is hardly responsible.

The tax relief that this Congress has given now in terms of four tax cuts has overwhelmingly gone to the people at the very top of the income scale in America.

The real reason to oppose increasing tax rates on the wealthy is that it's a good bet they could do more to help the economy if they keep their money rather than have their earnings confiscated by the government and spent on another round of stimulus.

Not surprisingly, some of the super-rich declined to join the Patriotic Millionaires when the Agenda Project reached out to them. At least two airily dismissed the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and above - which will cost well over $700 billion over the coming decade - as small potatoes.

Sadly, this is the same old Republican story of Robin Hood in reverse - tax cuts for the rich while programs for average and low income Americans suffer.

When a liberal says they are going to soak the rich, the middle class will get drenched.

When you say fiscal responsibility, it seems to me that you really mean rich people keeping their money.

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

We certainly could have voted on making the middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts for working families permanent had the Republicans not insisted that the only way they would support those tax breaks is if we also added $700 billion to the deficit to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. That's what was really disturbing.

But only 'rich' people by definition have the 'extra' money to buy things and invest to create economic growth. Do we really want to tax that 'extra' money away - and give it to the government to spend? Does that make any economic sense outside of politics and our emotional desire to make everyone suffer equally through these tough times?

Congress had the opportunity to extend tax relief to working families without increasing the deficit. Instead, we were handed a bill that favors the wealthy and eliminates deductions that benefit the middle class.

If we're not going to tax the rich anymore, we're going to create class warfare.

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.

Republicans spend and borrow, Democrats tax and spend.

I've seen it with my own eyes: When government takes money from the poor and the middle class, everyone suffers.

I recognize that Republicans see a moral difference between a dollar taken away from a millionaire in government benefits and a dollar taken away from a millionaire in taxes.

For the last 4 years, our Federal Government has produced the four biggest deficits in history, and the estimated 2006 deficit of $423 billion is projected to be the largest of all.

To be fair, Republicans are not blameless. The deficit began to spiral out of control on President Bush's watch.

It is human nature on the part of those who pay graduated taxes to attack all taxes based on the ability to pay. These are the same complainants who for a generation blocked the imposition of a graduated income tax. They are the same complainants who would impose the type of flat sales tax which places the burden of the government more on those least able to pay and less on those most able to pay.

You can always raise taxes on the rich, but that will not solve the deficit problem.

Making the rich pay the same tax rates on their investment earnings that the rest of us pay on our earnings would be a good start [towards tax reform].

Last year 100,000 people gathered on The Mall to Protest the deficit. We Republicans, over and over, castigated President Obama for creating a Trillion dollar deficit. I was against big deficits then, and I am agaist them now. Just because it is now Republicans doing all the spending, I am still opposed.... Those Republcians who voted for a tax cut and a spending increase are hypocrites.

Tax cuts for the rich defund the critical public programs on which American families depend.

Republicans seem to be gambling that most Americans won't care about a few rich private equity managers if their own taxes go down, their stock portfolio goes up, and economic growth accelerates.