If Nick Clegg hadn't been sitting around the cabinet table, we wouldn't have had the bedroom tax; we wouldn't have had the rise in tuition fees. We wouldn't have had the mistakes we've seen in economic policy.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
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.
I think most people... would be glad to pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president, if only they could have the same economy they had when Bill Clinton was president.
You know, I've got experiences going back to the wage price controls in the Nixon administration where, in effect, we had what I think was a terrible mistake, in that case a Republican administration, where moved in and tried to control the wages, prices and profits of every enterprise in America. It was a huge mistake.
We wanted to be certain they didn't have a bigger deficit, and Kennedy agreed with me.
Think of how we challenged the impression that we taxed for its own sake and that we were hostile to business. We were right to change.
What we need is fundamental tax reform.
If we didn't propose these reforms, we would not have proposed a budget that got the debt under control.
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.
Reagan didn't put anything off the table, if he felt it was for the good of the American people to tweak the tax system.
The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or '79.