There is a direct link between the federal tax cut of 2001 and state tax increases in 2003. When the federal government's mistakes force states to raise their taxes, it not only robs Peter to pay Paul, but it hurts hard-working families and it undermines our economy's strength.

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.

Tax increases through the back door. It's very insidious. I think it's very harmful and it's really going to have a very negative impact on the whole system if we don't reform it now.

We have not had tax increases since the 1970s, ... Since then costs on everything have gone up.

I'm for tax reform, not tax increases.

The country and the Congress were misled into war.