Senator Bernie Sanders - Republican
"In the midst of all of this growing income and wealth inequality in this country, we are now faced with the issue of what we do with the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. And if you can believe it, we have people here–many of my Republican colleagues–who tell us: Oh, I am so concerned about our recordbreaking deficit. I am terribly concerned about a $13.7 trillion national debt. I am terribly concerned about the debt we are going to be leaving to our kids and our grandchildren. But wait a minute. It is very important that we give, over a 10-year period, $700 billion in tax breaks to the top 2 percent. Oh yeah, we are concerned about the debt, we are concerned about the deficit, but we are more concerned that millionaires–people who earn at least $1 million a year or more–get, on average, $100,000 a year in tax breaks. So we have a $13.7 trillion national debt, and growing, we have growing income inequality–the top 1 percent earning more income than the bottom 50 percent–but the highest priority of many of my Republican colleagues is to make sure millionaires and billionaires get more tax breaks. I think that is absurd." (Read more)
