Popular quotes about Taxes! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.
Dick MorrisBy the standards of honest, if unorthodox, accounting, government workers don't pay taxes, but are paid out of taxes. In other words, they pay taxes out of money confiscated from taxpayers, who, in turn, pay taxes twice: on their own income and on the income of members of the bureaucracy. At the very least, this should disqualify state workers from voting.
Ilana MercerPut simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.
Ben SteinAnyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.
Learned HandSuggestion of the Communist Manifesto was 'abolition of all right of inheritance.' Looking backward upon the past history of estate taxes, we have to realize that they more and more have approached the goal set by Marx. Estate taxes of the height they have already attained for the upper brackets are no longer to be qualified as taxes. They are measures of expropriation.
Ludwig von MisesBarack Obama is talking about cutting taxes. On net, he is a tax cutter. But the difference between Obama and John McCain is that Obama is raising some taxes on families, for example, with incomes over $250,000. Now, that amounts to about 2 percent, the richest 2 percent of American households. And even with those tax changes, even with all of the tax changes Obama's talking about, taxes will be lower under Obama than they were under the Clinton years.
Jared BernsteinTexas has no income tax, which is a big draw for corporate executives who do business there. But it's hardly tax-free. The property taxes are high for a Southern state. The sales taxes are high. One study found that the bottom 20 percent of the Texas population pays 12 percent of its income in state and local taxes.
Gail CollinsIn America, we're being stripped of our jobs, our good jobs are really good down, and we've got to stop it. And the only way you're going to stop it, the nice way is, we're reducing taxes very substantially for companies so they're not going to have to leave because of taxes. We'll be reducing regulations. Now those are the nice ways of doing it and everyone loves it and everyone's happy. Businesses, way down. Also middle class, but way down, O.K., taxes and regulations.
Donald TrumpIt may be primarily property taxes in the case of a public library, or state taxes and tuition in the case of an academic library at a public university, but the funding sources of most libraries continue to have a strong geographic component.
Tom PetersThe IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes. . . .
Dave BarryIf anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper-middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it.
Warren BuffettWith taxes, if they aren't working right, we can change them with a stroke of the pen. It's basically a market-type mechanism. People make their own choices. You run the taxes, and you get the results.
Paul R. Ehrlich[George Bush] has raised taxes on the people driving pickup trucks and lowered taxes on the people riding in limousines. We can do better.
William J. ClintonCongress has changed the Social Security system over time, and over 20 times in the past Congress has raised taxes on Social Security in payroll taxes into the system.
Chris ChocolaThe reality is that the workforce relative to the number of people retired has shrunk and today in America there are only 3.3 working Americans paying payroll taxes to support each individual currently retired and collecting Social Security taxes.
John ShadeggThe most pernicious of his [Obama] proposals will be the massive Make Work Pay refundable tax credit. Dressed up as a tax cut, it will be a national welfare program, guaranteeing a majority of American households an annual check to 'refund' taxes they never paid. And it will eliminate the need for about 20% of American households to pay income taxes, lifting the proportion that need not do so to a majority of the voting population.
Dick MorrisBy requiring that any surplus in Social Security taxes be returned to the American people in personal savings accounts, the plan ensures that Social Security taxes will be used for Social Security.
Mike PenceIt was an easy thing to tax for a young country. And then gradually we moved to property taxes, manufacturing taxes, and the income tax was the answer to a populist demand: Let's go after the rich guys. We got into World War I, and they raised the rates and started taxing the rich. Then we got into World War II, and that's when they taxed everybody, because they just needed more revenue.
T.R. ReidRemember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot. ... Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, 'Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?'
P. J. O'RourkeThe only issue on taxes - Hillary Clinton is going to raise taxes, and Donald Trump and I are going to cut them.
Mike PenceI am going to cut taxes massively. I am going to cut business taxes massively. They're going to start hiring people.
Donald TrumpRonald Reagan cut taxes to raise the deficit to stop liberals in future years from increasing spending. Obama will raise spending to raise the deficit to stop conservatives in future years from cutting taxes. As he funds every liberal dream - from alternative energy production to infrastructure renovation to more federal revenue sharing - he will force a massive expansion in the size of government for a decade to come.
Dick MorrisThe only one benefiting from this, the American taxpayer, almost half of our taxes, our income taxes, are going to the military and to these wars.
Jill SteinIn constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
Baron de MontesquieuLabor has come out with a series of proposals to increase taxes, including taxes on people across Australia saving for their retirement, he has actually identified so far zero dollars in spending reductions.
Tony AbbottSome people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible.
Thomas SowellWe know taxes slow down economic growth, so if you add a carbon tax you have to also minus other taxes. You can't take more money out of people's pockets. I don't think you can build a consensus in this country about environmental policy if you're going to make people poor.
Christy ClarkAs I went about with my father, when he collected taxes, I knew that when taxes were laid someone had to work hard to earn the money to pay them.
Calvin CoolidgeThe federal government, state governments will not do without that tax revenue from tobacco no matter what. I've always thought it was one of the most contradictory setups that we have, because everything said publicly about the product is intended to besmirch it, impugn it, and do the same thing to the people that use it. And yet here's the government scoring, I mean, you want to talk about obscene profits, the government doesn't do a damn thing but stick its hand in. The government taxes tobacco at every stage. It taxes tobacco when the farmer's thinking about planting it.
Rush LimbaughIt is America, I don't want the government trying to control more of my life. I want less government control, and I think there are too many government regulations, laws and taxes on the books.
Trent LottOur first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups or between groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to be run. If you look back, you will see that warfare was an invention, just as ways of handling government or taxes are inventions. You will see, too, that once people use an invention they go on using it until they find another which they think is superior.
Margaret MeadLook at what I am proposing, and we [wih Bernie Sanders] have a vigorous agreement here. We both want to reign in the excesses of Wall Street. I also want to reign in the excesses of Johnson Controls that we bailed out when they were an autoparts company, and we saved the auto industry, and now they want to avoid paying taxes.
Hillary ClintonI kind of like carbon taxes because we already know how to apply them. We already have apparatus in place. When we talk about these other solutions - like a billion tons of iron filings in the ocean or putting sunshades between us and the sun - they're huge. We have no idea if they will work. We have no idea what their nasty consequences might be. And it's unlikely we can do them anyway.
Paul R. EhrlichI should say the leadership's proposal in the Senate and the House are very unpopular. And when people realize it will raise taxes, raise their insurance premiums cost and explode the deficit, they think twice about it.
Rahm EmanuelThe Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was, we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft, no new taxes, no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.
Bob SchiefferYou've worked hard all your life. You've paid Medicare taxes for almost 30 years. But under the Republican plan, Medicare won't be there for you. Instead of Medicare as it exists now, under the Republican plan you'll get a voucher that will pay as little as half your Medicare costs when you turn 65โand as little as a quarter in your 80s. And all so that millionaires and billionaires can have a huge tax cut.
David FrumWe ought to pay down the national debt, ... The American people are tired of people who make promises about cutting taxes that they cannot keep.
John McCainYou don't pay taxes; they take them from your check. That's not a payment - that's a 'jack.
Chris RockSalaries haven't kept up with inflation, and there is such anger coming out of Washington about immigrants that I think it has curtailed the ability of local folks here to hire immigrants, .. I really believe it starts from the top, and the policy continues to be one of ignoring people at the bottom, cutting taxes for those on the top and spending a lot of money for a war built on lies.
Jose SerranoWhat does have a chance of becoming law is a process that begins with securing the border. Currently the border is not secure and not just immigrants are coming across, but also drugs, weapons a whole series of problems. And I think that if you can prove to the American people that illegal immigration is under control, I think that the American people are willing to do something very reasonable about people who have been here for many years, who are not criminals, who are going to pay a fine, who are going to pay taxes, who are working.
Marco RubioOUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.
Ambrose BierceWe cut tax exemptions in 1986, it was the most admired tax reform in U.S. history. Congress and the president worked together then to eliminate scores of loopholes and exemptions and deductions; this made taxes much simpler, and allowed a major cut in tax rates.
T.R. ReidRick Perry I have a great fondness for. And what Rick Perry has, like Jeb Bush has, it will be interesting to compare their two records as governor, very close, great economic development, low taxes, all the things we want domestically out of a president.
Rudy GiulianiIt took the national debt two hundred years to reach $1 trillion. Supply Side Economics quadrupled the national debt to over $4 trillion in twelve years (1980-1992) under the Republicans. Bill Clinton actually paid down the national debt. How did he do it? He raised taxes. It produced the longest sustained economic expansion in U.S. History.
Ed Schultz