Pastoral Resources

We have reduced sales tax on food. Now we want it eliminated.

Who's on the case when it comes to the flat tax?

Most of the tasks we do are for humans. For example, a tax calculation is counting numbers so the government can pull money out from my wallet, but government consists of humans.

The American people want us to stop spending. And so let's just give them some certainty. Let's extend the tax - the existing tax cuts. And then let's give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.

The bill that job creators and out-of-work Americans need us to pass is the one that ensures taxes won't go up - one that says Americans and small-business owners won't get hit with more bad news at the end of the year.

Americans don't think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.

But beyond the hysteria of phantom death panels, where is the abomination? Show me the provisions that will hurt consumers, because if you think a $110 billion a year tax break for working-class Americans to buy private health insurance is a government takeover, I welcome the debate.

In providing this $5,000 tax credit for those purchasing rural homes, we're offering an important incentive to encourage people to live in smaller communities - and perhaps even stay in a community they might be considering leaving.

The payment of taxes is an obvious and insistent duty, and its sanction is usually punitive.

Providing tax relief and reducing regulations leads to job creation and new economic opportunities for our small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy.

Eastern Washington families and businesses should be able to deduct every penny of state and local sales tax they pay throughout the year from their federal tax bill, especially when people in most states are deducting their state income taxes.

The 55% of American households that make less than $40,000 will get a tax break of only $7 while the households that make more than $1 million will receive an average tax break of $32,000.

At the same time, Republicans are pushing a $70 billion tax package that will overwhelmingly benefit the most wealthy Americans and actually increases the deficit by $16 billion.

We not only heard it before 20 years ago, before George Bush in 2001 passed his tax relief, before in 2003 the tax relief were past, we were told they were dead. Before we provided prescription drugs for Medicare, we were told it wasn't going to happen.

A balanced program for tax reform based upon the common sense idea of lowering taxes out of surplus revenues.

Give tax breaks to large corporations, so that money can trickle down to the general public, in the form of extra jobs.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

We are afraid to face the hard questions. We are willing to tackle drugs, crime, and public education only if it doesn't cost us any new taxes.

Reconciliation is a special budget procedure to change entitlement and tax laws. It cannot be filibustered and requires only a simple majority in the Senate to be passed. It is primarily intended for deficit and mandatory spending reduction.