Tax Cut Quotes & Sayings

As income taxes and capital-gains taxes were reduced in the United States beginning in the 1980s, the share of federal taxes paid by "the rich" steadily went up. From 1980 to 2010, as the top 1 percent increased their share of before-tax income from 9 percent to 15 percent, their share of the individual income tax soared from 17 percent to 39 percent of the total paid. Their share of total federal taxes more than doubled during a period when the highest marginal tax rate was cut in half, from 70 percent to 35.5 percent. The wealthy, in short, are already paying more than their fair share of taxes, and the growth in their wealth and incomes has had nothing to do with tax avoidance or deflecting the tax burden to the middle class. — James Piereson

Well, I think the reality is that as you study - when President Kennedy cut marginal tax rates, when Ronald Reagan cut marginal tax rates, when President Bush imposed those tax cuts, they actually generated economic growth. They expanded the economy. They expand tax revenues. — Mike Pence

When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayer a break requires - now or down the line - that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can however, determine who pays for lunch. — Warren Buffett

Hearing politicians tell us we can't afford a tax cut is like listening to a glutton tell you he can't afford a diet. In no other context do people talk about paying for money they don't have. I can't pay for your refusal to give me money because I need a yacht. — Ann Coulter

I'm a different kind of Republican. I've introduced a five-year balanced budget. I've introduced the largest tax cut in our history. I stood for ten and a half hours on the Senate floor to defend your right to be left alone. — Rand Paul

One of the things we worry about when we cut the tax on gasoline is that it basically stimulates additional use. — Edward Lazear

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy. — Michael Bloomberg

Thatcher had broken the miners' union, all but crushed the Labour Party, dramatically cut back the welfare state, even flirted with a poll tax. In the circles I ran in, Reagan was mocked as a childish dolt. Thatcher was despised. — Jon Weisman

The year of the birth of Israel, the year of the Republican tax cut and the Truman Balcony, would be remembered also as the year green (chlorophyll) chewing gum became a fad, the year of a new word game called "Scrabble," of tail fins on Cadillacs, and an unimaginably daring new bathing suit called the bikini, after the island where the atomic bomb tests were carried out the summer before. — David McCullough

Spending and tax cut decisions must be both fiscally responsible and fair to our working families. I believe that fiscal responsibility is the way to create prosperity for America and secure the retirement of America's seniors. — Blanche Lincoln

And I think most people in this country want to see a president that's got the courage to say we're going to cut the tax burden, and reduce the regulatory climate, and we're going to get Americans working. — Rick Perry

I support responsible spending, and balancing the budget, but this tax cut and the budget cuts of last month accomplish neither of these goals. — Marty Meehan

Health care is still the number-one issue out there. Someone who seizes it, I think, will do very well in an election. Let's face it: Clinton's two big issues were the middle class tax cut, which he dropped, wisely, at the time to help reduce the deficit, and health care. That's what he ran on. — Russ Feingold

I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face and say they are for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, completely unpaid for. — Claire McCaskill

On Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House voted mostly along party lines tonight to pass President Bush's federal budget blueprint. This includes his big tax cut plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid programs for children and education. — Dan Rather

You've got to either say you're going to cut taxes and find some spending cuts. I think we ought to reform long-term entitlement spending in the country, but you can't out of one side of your mouth say, 'Yes, we're for tax cuts, we're for spending discipline, and we're for bringing down the debt.' — Harold Ford Jr.

They are having quite an argument over Treasury Secretary Mellon's Tax Bill. Mr. Mellon wants to cut the surtax on the rich, and leave it as is on the poor, as there is more poor than rich. I suppose the majority will win. — Will Rogers

If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. — Barack Obama

Contrary to the myth that Mr. Bush cut taxes only for the wealthy, the 2001 tax cut reduced taxes for every income-tax payer in the country. — Ari Fleischer

So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget. — Kurt Vonnegut

It is hard to be enthusiastic about the economy's prospects when house prices are falling: Households spend less, small business owners can't use homes as collateral for loans and local governments are forced to cut jobs and programs as property-tax revenue disappears. — Mark Zandi

While big corporations make huge, tax-free profits, taxes for the everyday working person skyrocket. While politicians take free trips around the world, those same politicians cut back food stamps for the poor. While politicians increase their salaries, millions of people are being laid off. This city is on the brink of bankruptcy, and yet hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on this trial. I do not understand a government so willing to spend millions of dollars on arms, to explore outer space, even the planet Jupiter, and at the same time close down day care centers and fire stations. — Assata Shakur

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, "Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other; it is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, as long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance the budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. In short, the paradoxical truth is that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now. — Ronald Reagan

Let's restore sanity and fairness to the tax cut conversation. We simply cannot afford to hand over the bank vault to our nation's millionaires and billionaires while the middle class picks up spare change. — Paul Tonko

I am not quite sure what the advantage is in having a few more dollars to spend if the air is too dirty to breathe, the water too polluted to drink, the commuters are losing out in the struggle to get in and out of the city, the streets are filthy, and the schools so bad that the young perhaps wisely stay away, and the hoodlums roll citizens for some of the dollars they saved in the tax cut. — John Kenneth Galbraith

All those predictions about how much economic growth will be created by this, all of those new jobs, would be created by the things we wanted - the extension of unemployment insurance and middle class tax cuts. An estate tax for millionaires adds exactly zero jobs. A tax cut for billionaires - virtually none. — Anthony Weiner

In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts would come from low-income programs. Yet at the same time, the Republican budget would provide a substantial tax cut to the rich - who are already taking home an almost unprecedented share of the nation's total income. — Robert B. Reich

Well, you know, we've got a lot of stimulus in the economy already from the tax cut, from the lowered interest rates, and also from the refinancing of mortgages. — Franklin Raines

Bush is giving the rich a tax cut instead of putting that cut in the pockets of working people. — Carol Moseley Braun

The clearest way to cut some of this fiscal drag would be to extend the current payroll tax holiday and increase it - as proposed by President Barack Obama. This would cut the fiscal drag by almost half. — Mark Zandi

The move to tax Internet sales, clothed as a 'fairness' issue, is the typical 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' ploy so often used by governments unwilling to cut expenditures to match revenues. It matters not whether its proponents have a 'D' or an 'R' after their name. It is a tax increase in either case. — Bob Barr

The middle classes shouldn't be getting tax cuts, while those in tough, poorly paid jobs, who are already running out of money at the start of the month, are getting their benefits cut. That's not one-nation conservatism; it's two nations conservatism. — Tim Montgomerie

Yeah, it's real easy to look in the mirror and be proud when you're wearing pleated shorts. And you know what's really pathetic? I don't even have any dividends to get tax-decreased. When'll they cut taxes on not-having-health-insurancends? — David Rees

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own deficits. This will create greater pressure for higher state and local taxes. — Dick Durbin

'Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.' Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That's not a tax raise. That's called fairness where I come from. — Joe Biden

Decisions to cut aid for the terminally ill, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with two cars and umpteen tax shelters. None of them go hungry to bed at night. — Audre Lorde

There are some Republicans who say that any time you raise new revenue, you have to have a tax cut to match it. I am not one of those Republicans. — Jeff Flake

Conservatives have consistently voted to cut taxes on the rich. Current proposals for a "flat tax" would mean cutting taxes on the rich. The arguments are often versions of the Moral Hierarchy principle, that the rich are just better people than the poor: they have earned their money through hard work; the poor just haven't worked hard enough and so deserve to be poor. Hmmm . . . Corporate CEOs tend to make about two hundred times as much as their average employees - they can't be working two hundred times as hard. And many of the rich have inherited their money not earned it through work. Another — George Lakoff

What we're discussing privately and publicly, is a budget which is a blueprint for the future which creates jobs, which educates our children, which provides healthcare for all Americans, which takes our deficit down, which gives a tax cut for 95% of the American people. — Nancy Pelosi

I'm Bill Clinton and I think you deserve a change. That's why I've offered a plan to get the economy moving again, starting with a middle-class tax cut ... — William J. Clinton

I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day. — Frank Lautenberg

In 2001, Republicans used reconciliation to pass President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthy. — Bernie Sanders

Here's what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut. And if you make less than $250,000, less than a quarter-million dollars a year, then you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase. — Barack Obama

The compromises made with the rich are consistently out of line with public opinion. The public desires to tax the rich more heavily, cut military spending, and develop renewable energy alternatives to oil. The outcome instead is tax cuts for the rich, unchecked military spending, and a continued stagnation in alternatives to oil, gas, and coal. Both — Jeffrey D. Sachs

A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an economic illness. — George W. Bush

As it turns out, people who cut their work hours often take a smaller hit financially than they expect. That is because spending less time on the job means spending less money on the things that allow us to work: transport, parking, eating out, coffee, convenience food, childcare, laundry, retail therapy. A smaller income also translates into a smaller tax bill. In one Canadian study, some workers who took a pay cut in return for shorter hours actually ended up with more money in the bank at the end of the month. — Carl Honore

Instead of following through on their promise to concentrate on jobs, Republicans have attacked seniors, working families, women, and the most vulnerable among us. They have pursued an extreme agenda that would end Medicare as we know it and cut Social Security benefits in order to continue giving tax breaks to Big Oil and millionaires. — Dina Titus

Well, certainly the Democrats have been arguing to raise the capital gains tax on all Americans. Obama says he wants to do that. That would slow down economic growth. It's not necessarily helpful to the economy. Every time we've cut the capital gains tax, the economy has grown. Whenever we raise the capital gains tax, it's been damaged. — Grover Norquist

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money. — Ben Bernanke

A tax cut to compensate for a tax increase is not a cut - it's a con. — Tony Abbott

Our intention is to give people, however you might stylize it, a tax cut or a pay raise. — Paul O'Neill

God put the Republican Party on earth to cut taxes. If they don't do that, they have no useful function. — Robert Novak

This is his solution: He said all we need to do is take your tax dollars, send them to Washington, have Washington take out its cut, having Washington then send it back to the states, have the states then go out and hire public employees. Does that make sense to you? Is that how to get the economy moving? — Rob Portman

Legislation to create a new 10 percent tax bracket, reduce the marriage penalty, cut the tax rate on dividends and capital gains, and increase the child tax credit have been essential elements in this economic expansion. — Roger Wicker

Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to promote policies that produce jobs and economic growth, and to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. — Nancy Pelosi

My healthcare plan puts more money into average families' pockets than the Bush tax cuts ... He's got a lousy tax cut. It's only good for the super wealthy. I've got a tax cut that will help ordinary people. — Dick Gephardt

Democrats are not about to nominate anyone who backs the tax cut, and Americans are not going to elect anyone who favors a tax increase. — Dick Morris

Bill Clinton gives the appearance of taking stands-for some sort of tax cut, some sort of welfare reform, some sort of balanced budget-but these are ploys, mirages: they exist only to undermine positions taken by the Republicans. He doesn't fight for anything substantive-except of course, re-election ... He has fallen into the dangerous habit of lip synching the presidency: he gives the appearance of leadership, but not the substance. — Joe Klein

Hy is it you can impose a new tax and keep your economy growing? Only if you cut other taxes by exactly the same amount. The problem with carbon taxes around the world has been you dump a new tax onto the economy and it's just adding more tax. — Christy Clark

Democrats in Washington predicted that tax cuts would not create jobs, would not increase wages, and would cause the federal deficit to explode. Well, the facts are in. The tax cuts have led to a strong economy. Real wages were on the rise, and deficit has been cut in half three years ahead of schedule. — George W. Bush

Make no mistake, the point of cutting the personal income tax and the capital gains cut is to send an unmistakable message to business. — Bill Richardson

This is a huge strategic problem for Labour. Mr Laws is a magnificent deployer of Tina; every particular cut he makes, every specific tax increase, is justified on the basis that There Is No Alternative, and that anyone who says different is a Flat Earther. But if Labour complains, it encounters Tina's new boy-friend Alf - All Labour's Fault. — David Aaronovitch

Happiness statistics may be most valuable in smaller, local discussions. Understanding how different sorts of programs affect the well-being of citizens would be enormously helpful to a mayor choosing between building a new bridge or offering a tax cut. — Adam Davidson

This is such music to my ears. James Carville advocating a tax cut to stimulate the economy. — Mary Matalin

Why would we want to keep a tax cut that's failed? Why would we not want to go back to the Clinton tax code? And why would we not want to help every family more with a health-care plan like mine? Let's help average people. Let's be Democrats. — Dick Gephardt

We're going to have a tax cut. Today's American family is overtaxed at all levels. — Dick Armey

I am too sick to work and haven't money enough to last 2 months and pay income tax. I want to keep going but do not see quite how, and there is no alternative - rather than justify my mother's 25-year dread of my "coming back on her, sick", I must kill myself. If she has to pay funeral costs, at least she will cut them to the bone and I will not be here to endure her martyrdom and prolong it by living. — Rose Wilder Lane

Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase. — Grover Norquist

The 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 Morris

Even if Bush could be forgiven for taking America, and much of the rest of the world, to war on false pretenses, and for misrepresenting the cost of the venture, there is no excuse for how he chose to finance it. His was the first war in history paid for entirely on credit. As America went into battle, with deficits already soaring from his 2001 tax cut, Bush decided to plunge ahead with yet another round of tax relief for the wealthy. — Joseph Stiglitz

Everyone wants a more simple tax system. But if this means that certain tax breaks have to be cut, people are no longer so enthusiastic. — Angela Merkel

Recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don't pay income taxes are Romney supporters - especially of course seniors (who might well 'believe they are entitled to heath care,' a position Romney agrees with), as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they're not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him. — William Kristol

As president, I would promote a Fair and Flat Tax plan, known as the 'EZ Tax.' My tax plan would be the largest tax cut in American history, reforming individual, business, and worker taxes. — Rand Paul

Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents? — Peg Bracken

Pundits, opponents, and disillusioned supporters would blame Obama for squandering the promise of his administration. Certainly he and his administration made their share of mistakes. But it is hard to think of another president who had to face the kind of guerrilla warfare waged against him almost as soon as he took office. A small number of people with massive resources orchestrated, manipulated, and exploited the economic unrest for their own purposes. They used tax-deductible donations to fund a movement to slash taxes on the rich and cut regulations on their own businesses. While they paid focus groups and seasoned operatives to frame these self-serving policies as matters of dire public interest, they hid their roles behind laws meant to protect the anonymity of philanthropists, leaving more folksy figures like Santelli to carry the message. — Jane Mayer

The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrence to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system, and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. — John F. Kennedy

There are more people at Obama's table offering ideas than there were five years ago, but when it came to facing up to the Republicans' threat to force a double-dip recession if they didn't get their millionaires' tax cut, they still amounted to nothing. And therein lies our fundamental problem. — Eric Alterman

I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes. — Bernie Sanders

The NRA was one of the items that we pointed to when we added money to the labor, health and Education appropriations bill by reducing the size of the tax cut. — Dave Obey

Well the thinking is we have the highest tax rate in the world. In the entire world, we have the highest tax rate. There's gridlock in Washington because there's no leadership. So what I'm doing is a large tax cut especially for the middle class and they're gonna- we're going to have a dynamic country. We're going to have dynamic economics. And it's going to be something really special. And people are going back to work. — Donald Trump

I've been told that some members of Congress disagree with my tax cut proposal. Well, you know it's been said that taxation is the art of plucking feathers without killing the bird. It's time they realized the bird just doesn't have any feathers left. — Ronald Reagan

Conservatives need to figure out a way to motivate by reason and persuade through emotion. Meaning that when they talk about our issues, it can't come from a selfish place - "Give me a tax cut. Where's my tax cut." We have to get back to that "shining city on the hill." — Andrea Tantaros

Many attempts had been made by colonial legislatures to cut off or to tax the importation of slaves. — Albert Bushnell Hart

I needed a vacation. I needed 5 women. I needed to get the wax out of my ears. My car needed an oil change. I'd failed to file my damned income tax. One of the stems had broken off of my reading glasses. There were ants in my apartment. I needed to get my teeth cleaned. My shoes were run down at the heels. I had insomnia. My auto insurance had expired. I cut myself every time i shaved. I hadn't laughed in 6 years. I tended to worry when there was nothing to worry about. And when there was something to worry about, i got drunk. — Charles Bukowski

From New Hampshire forward, for reasons that absolutely mystified me, the press thought the most important issue in the race was the middle class tax cut. I never did meet any voter who thought that. — William J. Clinton

In the name of short-term stimulus, he [Obama] will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. — Dick Morris

Republicans have been running on tax-cut proposals since the era of Harding and Coolidge. Tax-rate reductions and simplifications are urgently needed. But again, there is no mention of the key problems of a global economy in decline - of the acceptance by economic elites of inevitable and irremediable stagnation. We have not faced the fact that the Federal Reserve's capacity to command growth is a god that has failed. — George Gilder

Start by scrapping the tax code. Don't fiddle with it. Junk it. Throw it out. Bury it. Replace it with a pro-growth, pro-family tax cut that lowers tax rates to 17% across the board and expands exemptions for individuals and children so that a family of four would pay no taxes on the first $36,000 of income. — Steve Forbes

There are no checks and balances if the gov is wrong, if a private entrepreneur makes a mistake, he goes bankrupt, the losses are cut, if he bets wrong, he loses, if the gov bets wrong, they just get bigger, they just appropriate more money, it's a bottomless pit, because they either get it from the tax payers or run it off a printing press. — Peter Schiff

The House okayed the gasoline tax cut, which will increase the deficit, line the pockets of the oil companies, and hurt the environment; Dole said that if there was just some way this could interfere with people's sex lives, it would be perfect legislation. — Bill Maher

It appears that no one is so unfortunate that he or she is exempt from spending cuts, while at the same time no one is so fortunate as to be ineligible for a tax cut — Jonathan Schell

I think the tax cut is ridiculous but so am I. — Randy Newman

Every time you cut programs, you take away a person who has a vested interest in high taxes and you put him on the tax rolls and make him a taxpayer. A farmer on subsidies is part welfare bum, whereas a free-market farmer is a small businessman with a gun. — Grover Norquist

Every time we've cut the capital gains tax, the economy has grown. Whenever we raise the capital gains tax, it's been damaged. It's one of those taxes that most clearly damages economic growth and jobs. — Grover Norquist

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country. — Thomas Friedman

My plan has all that. It's energy independence. It will help our economy. It's a significant tax cut for corporations, including automatic expensing. It's bringing all those profits home from Europe without any taxation. It's lowering our corporate - or our personal rate to 28 percent, the same rate that Ronald Reagan had. — Sean Hannity

Washington continues to encourage ever more ill-considered lending in a misguided attempt to stave off needed market corrections. The currently proposed combination of a nationwide infrastructure spending orgy plus tax-cut bribes does nothing to remedy that. — Michelle Malkin

You'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 65 - and as little as a quarter in your 80s. And all so that millionaires and billionaires can have a huge tax cut. — David Frum

Make no mistake, if the payroll-tax cut is extended, it will become permanent. Social Security will become another welfare program as the tie between what someone pays and what they receive gets broken. — Ari Fleischer

Cutting taxes is not bad. But if you cut taxes on the wealthy, which is what they wanted to do, you're not helping people who need better schools and better infrastructure and healthcare. You're basically robbing the middle class and the poor to provide tax cuts to the rich. — Robert Reich