Quotes About Reform

Companies pay taxes, not individual persons. They do not pay for their wealth. And that must be changed.

Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change.

For a free country to continue thriving, there have to be regular reforms, because any society, any economy that stays in place, you're going to see repeated attempts to exploit the openings for twisting policy to the advantage of those who already have wealth and power.

One way to have broader access to wealth is to reduce the tax on the large group and increase the tax on the very top so concentration of wealth doesn't get to extreme levels.

The question for Obama is how he can rein in the furies of populism while making us all feel the malefactors of great wealth are being sufficiently punished.

The U.S. is the country that invented progressive taxation of income and of inherited wealth in the 1910s and '20s.

The problem with money bail, for those who aren't familiar with it, is that it puts a price tag on freedom. It says to someone who is wealthy that no matter how dangerous you are, you can buy your way out.

In San Francisco, I am proud to say that one of my first mandates as district attorney was that my staff would never ask the court to impose money bail. If we believe someone is too dangerous to be released, then it doesn't matter how wealthy they are - we should ask the court to detain them.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.

Even tax breaks that are supposed to help the middle class too often skew toward the wealthy. Consider the mortgage interest deduction. While political leaders in both parties have long considered it untouchable, it actually helps those at the top of the income scale far more than those at the bottom.

What we need to do is replace the entire tax code. I do not think it makes sense to say, 'Let's just grab money from, quote, the wealthy'... The issue is the tax code's rotten and we should start truly over with a simple code that is fair and transparent.

Betty Sutton and I will make it a point to put state government back on the side of the middle class, not the wealthy and well-connected who have run the show at the statehouse for far too long.

I try to deal with the poverty gap - to do policies for all of us rather than only for the wealthy.

We need to consider a financial transactions tax. And we need to ask whether the top marginal tax rates are really appropriate, given that the effective tax rates paid by the wealthy are often actually lower than those paid by the rest of us.

Trickle-down economics does not work, and tax reform should not be defined as partisan tax cuts for the wealthy and huge corporations.

We cannot fight new wars with old weapons.

Certainly, we have to make sure our police forces do not have weapons of mass destruction with which they can terrorize our communities.

We need to digitize gun-sales records, mandate universal background checks, close gun-show loopholes and straw-man purchases, ban high-capacity magazines, and push for a comprehensive assault weapons ban with an extensive buyback system.

I'm sick of watching 'Blue Lives Matter' supporters idly stand by any police officer simply because he wears blue, ignoring the facts that should make them cringe in disbelief and horror. Police brutality is systemic, not anecdotal.

Gay weddings will be remembered as Tony Blair's greatest achievement!

In the immigration debate, some things are constant. They never change. One is that opponents of immigration reform will use it as a wedge issue and will blame everything from unemployment to rising health care costs on immigrants.

We must weed out corruption and build a strong system of justice that the people can trust.

For me, talking about the casting couch in the Malayalam film industry was like calling the sky blue. There is nothing new about calling a spade a spade. My intention was not to create an effect; I just wanted to pluck a few weeds in the system and throw them out.

Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described, in one way or another, as 'socialist.' Yet, these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.