The only people who seem to be all exercised about tax cuts are legislators. Voters want decent education, they want health care, they want clean air, they want transportation. They say it over and over again, but the Legislature is not listening.

Too few people see the connection of public policy and people's lives, but he could. We need more like him.

A lot of Americans think they got a tax cut, and they didn't because their local property tax went up, their excise tax went up, their sales tax went up, and their prices went up and everything else, because we failed to invest in some of these other things we ought to be doing. ... We are squeezing the middle class, we are losing the middle class, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing wider and wider, not closing as it used to be.

This is the bottom-line issue, the overriding issue.

For years, comprehensive tax reform has eluded legislators.

We need to have tax relief for those who really need tax relief. The concept of tax cuts is fine, but we want it targeted.