Paul Tonko Quotes

Our economy grows from the middle out, not the top down.

As Ohio's working families continue to recover from the worst economic recession in our country's history, we need a president who's committed to growing our economy by lifting up the middle class.

No matter how wealthy a few plutocrats get, we can never drive a great national economy. Only a thriving middle class can do that.

You cannot have a strong, resilient economy unless you have a strong resilient middle class.

From the day he first walked through the door of the Oval Office, President Obama's top priority has been growing our economy, creating good jobs, and rebuilding middle class security.

The Republican 'Work Harder for Less' budget leaves more Americans even worse off than they are today. The 'People's Budget' makes the critical investments needed to give the American people exactly what they deserve - economic security and peace of mind - and helps grow our economy from the middle out.

Americans are falling out of the middle class, not into it. And they deserve relief. I absolute support extending the Bush tax cuts for those who work the hardest and invest the most in our economy - the real drivers of American growth, the middle class.

Tax cuts are an investment in working families.

The middle class is the engine of this economy.

The real question is “What can we do to improve the earnings of lower- and middle-income Americans?” That’s about increased education and skills training, and that may require higher government spending.

I always like to say, Bill Clinton created more millionaires and billionaires than any president, but you know what, more people moved out of poverty. Middle-class income - all-time high.

Our argument is everybody ought to be paying lower rates, and we ought to be focused on growing the economy and rebuilding the middle class.

To reward work, to grow the middle class and strengthen the economy, to give millions of Americans the respect they deserve... It's time to raise the minimum wage.

Tax cuts that actually go to working-class, middle-class people, I'm not opposed to.

Federal policies must understand the linkages between economic growth, social mobility, and a strong middle class.

The way to turn our economy around is not by making rich people poorer, it's by making poor people richer.

But this convention is about more than re-nominating President Obama. It's about Americans coming together to build one economy - not from the top down, but from the middle class out and the bottom up.

Henry Ford was right. A prosperous economy requires that workers be able to buy the products that they produce. This is as true in a global economy as a national one.

The union movement has been the best middle class job creating program that America has ever had, and it doesn't cost the government a dime.

Government is not the generator of economic growth; working people are.

A thriving middle class is the source of growth in a technological, capitalist economy. Investing in the middle class is the most pro-business thing you can do.

If we have an honest discussion on whether the war on poverty should be fought with welfare or with economic growth in the private sector, Democrats will lose black votes.

When we get the private sector going through job creation and growth, then the governments at all level have revenues to do the things that they need to do. And that's why it's so important to get this economy moving, to get jobs created. We can't keep going on with this anemic recovery.

Democrats believe we must create jobs, not protect the special interests; build the economy from the middle out, not the top down.

Because we believe that you got to build the economy from middle out and not from the top down.