Quotes & Sayings About Tax Cuts

A federal bailout would spare California from having to make spending cuts needed to bring its budget into balance. The matter has become urgent since California voters rejected several tax-hiking ballot initiatives. Rather than taking the vote as a signal to dramatically curtail spending, the state turned to the feds. If they get a free pass, the politicians can avoid fixing any of their past mistakes or preparing California for the future. — Peter Schiff

Temporary tax cuts don't create permanent confidence, nor permanent jobs. — Mark McKinnon

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

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can't afford it. And I refuse to renew them again. — Barack Obama

Jesus never called the poor 'lazy,' fought for tax cuts for the wealthiest Nazarenes or asked a leper for a copay. — John Fugelsang

I love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. I inherited a trillion-dollar deficit ... This notion that somehow we caused the deficits is just wrong. It's just not true ... If they start trying to give you a bunch of facts and figures suggesting that it's true, what they're not telling you is they baked all this stuff into the cake with those tax cuts and a prescription drug plan that they didn't pay for and the wars. — Barack Obama

Governors of both political parties face a stark choice between unpopular tax increases and drastic cuts in Medicaid, education, public safety and other essential services. — Bill Delahunt

Barack Obama's life was so much simpler in 2009. Back then, he had refined the cold act of blaming others for the bad economy into an art form. Deficits? Blame Bush's tax cuts. Spending? Blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No business investment? Blame Wall Street. — John Sununu

The tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 - and extended for two years in 2010 - in 2011 saved the richest 1.4 million taxpayers (the top 1 percent) more money than the rest of America's 140.89 million taxpayers received in total income. — Robert B. Reich

We shouldn't be undermining Medicare for those who need it most in order to give more tax cuts to those who need them least. — Ann McLane Kuster

Apparently there are some Democratic leaders in the Senate that are running for office who now believe in tax cuts. — Jeb Bush

Governments enjoying surpluses have a very strong temptation to splash money around, and while tax cuts are always appealing, cutting taxes at the top of a boom runs the real risk of creating a structural deficit when the boom subsides. — Malcolm Turnbull

Let us invest less and less in war and tax cuts for the richest 1 percent, and more and more in jobs and schools for the other 99 percent. — Benjamin Todd Jealous

I am very much in favor of tax cuts. — John McCain

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

If you don't try to generate more revenues through tax reform, if you don't ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American, then you have to - the only way to achieve fiscal sustainability is through unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for middle class seniors, or unacceptably deep cuts in national security. — Timothy Geithner

The rich control our politics to a huge extend. In return they get tax cuts and deregulation. It's been and is an amazing ride for the rich. — Jeffrey D. Sachs

Mark Kirk: Lied about going to war. Opposed middle class tax cuts. And said unemployment's not that big an issue. — Alexi Giannoulias

Mainstream economists habitually treat asset depletion as income, while ignoring the value of the assets themselves. If the owner of an old-growth forest cuts it and sells the timber, the market may record a drop in the land's monetary value, but otherwise the ecological damage done is regarded as an externality. Irreplaceable biological assets, in this case, have been liquidated; thus the benefit of these assets to future generations is denied. From an ecosystem point of view, an economy that does not heavily tax the extraction of non-renewable resources is like a jobless person rapidly spending an inheritance. — Anonymous

I cannot in good conscience vote in favor of tax cuts, irrespective of their size, or to which segment of the population they are targeted, ... Nor can I support any spending increases that are not related to improving our nation's defense from the obvious and serious threats facing us today. — John McCain

I wish they weren't called the 'Bush tax cuts.' If they're called some other body's tax cuts, they're probably less likely to be raised. — George W. Bush

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

The reality is that during the Reagan years, for instance, we doubled the amount of revenue that we were sending to Washington, D.C. after the tax cuts took effect. — Mike Pence

In fact, I'd say that the sources of the economy's expansion from 2003 to 2007 were, in order, the housing bubble, the war, and - very much in third place - tax cuts. — Paul Krugman

President Obama has repeatedly urged Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Increasing rates on top earners is an obvious way to raise revenue from those who can afford it most. — Christina Romer

Should we freeze or postpone prospective tax cuts and avoid any new tax cuts until we are sure we have the money to pay for the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. — Tim Russert

The budget does not adequately fund important domestic programs, promotes tax cuts to the detriment of other priorities and does little to put our nation's fiscal house in order. — Jim Jeffords

And I have to tell you as a grandmother, I worry about the fact that my grandchildren are going to be paying for all the spending, including military spending, that has gone on and the tax cuts that have come through. — Geraldine Ferraro

I kid the Republicans, with love. I feel bad for them. They got nobody for next time. Who are they gonna run? Sara Palin, reading off her hand. Did you see that? You saw this? She wrote tax cuts on her hand. A Republican so stupid she has to be reminded of the one thing- Tax cuts! This is like if you saw the coyote's paw and it said Road Runner. — Bill Maher

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

After 25 quarters of so-called recovery under Obama, it has increased a total of only 14.3 percent. Compare this to earlier periods. After the JFK tax cuts of the early 1960s, the economy grew in total by roughly 40 percent. After the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s, the economy grew by a total of 34 percent. — Lawrence Kudlow

Making the tax cuts permanent will continue to grow the economy, create jobs, and put more money in the pockets of the hard-working families of Pennsylvania. — Tim Murphy

On the issues that I care deeply about - the environment, Roe vs. Wade, the war in Iraq, with no weapons of mass destruction, the tax cuts that are now leading to deficits, I've got some deep issues with the president. — Lincoln Chafee

I could never allow [tax] cuts that devastate education for our children, that pollute our environment, that end the guarantee of health care for those who are served under Medicaid, that end our duty or violate our duty to our parents through Medicare. I just couldn't do that. As long as I'm president, I'll never let it happen. — William J. Clinton

Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible? — Barry Goldwater

Raising the minimum wage and lowering the barriers to union organization would carry a trade-off - higher unemployment. A better idea is to have the government subsidize low-wage employment. The earned-income tax credit for low-income workers - which has been the object of proposed cuts by both President Clinton and congressional Republicans - has been a positive step in this direction. — Paul Krugman

Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today. As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, it's just nonsense. It's just made up. — Bruce Bartlett

... economists recognize that, other things equal, cuts in tax rates reduce tax revenues in percentage terms by less than the tax-rate reductions. Similarly, tax-rate increases do not raise tax revenues by as much in percentage terms as the tax-rate increases. This is true because changes in marginal tax rates alter taxpayer behavior and thus affect taxable income. — Campbell R. McConnell

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. — Paul Tonko

For the fifth year in a row, the Bush budget cuts city core services to pay for wealthy tax breaks. And once again, the mayor's requests were not funded. — Anthony Weiner

To the extent that we've got a fiscal crisis right now, part of it is prompted by a bullheaded insistence on the part of the president, for example, that we should extend all of his tax cuts, make all of them permanent. — Barack Obama

Welfare reform happened with reconciliation; half the Democrats voted for it. The Bush tax cuts happened with reconciliation; twelve Democratic Senators voted for it. You didn't have a real partisan issue on those times that it was used. — Kent Conrad

Tax cuts were not going to be effective at creating jobs, and the job creation record is lousy. — Paul Krugman

From World War II until 1981 the top marginal income tax rate never fell below 70 percent. Under President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican whom no one ever accused of being a socialist, the top rate was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and credits, Americans with incomes of over $1 million (in today's dollars) paid a top marginal rate, on average, of 52 percent. As recently as the late 1980s, the top tax rate on capital gains was 35 percent. But as income and wealth have accumulated at the top, so has the political power to reduce taxes. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which were extended for two years in December 2010, capped top rates at 35 percent, their lowest level in more than half a century, and reduced capital gains taxes to 15 percent. — Robert B. Reich

Dozens of America's wealthiest taxpayers - including hedge fund legend Michael Steinhardt, super trial lawyer Guy Saperstein, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's fame - have appealed to President Obama not to renew the Bush tax cuts for anyone earning more than $1 million a year. — Joe Conason

The world is likely to view any temporary extension of the income tax cuts for the top two percent as a prelude to a long-term or permanent extension, and that would hurt economic recovery as well by undermining confidence that we're prepared to make a commitment today to bring down our future deficits. — Timothy Geithner

Tax cuts are like sex: When they are good, they are very, very good. And when they are bad, they are still pretty good. — M. Stanton Evans

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

America's corporate and political elites
now form a regime of their own and
they're privatizing democracy. All the
benefits - the tax cuts, policies and
rewards flow in one direction: up. — Bill Moyers

I wonder ... if the Republican Party really wants to be branded right now as the party of tax cuts and torture? I mean that's what they're selling. — Chris Matthews

The administration says the American people want tax cuts. Well, duh. The American people also want drive-through nickel beer night. The American people want to lose weight by eating ice cream. The American people love the Home Shopping Network because it's commercial-free. — Will Durst

I think the Bush tax cuts should be made permanent. — Vito Fossella

These kids understood what is not immediately obvious; that they were going to pay the bills for tax cuts that had been passed today or in the last 4 years, and for the war in Iraq, because essentially we are borrowing money to do those things. — Tom Allen

On GOP Tax Cuts: They'll take food out of the mouths of children to give tax cuts to the wealthiest. — Nancy Pelosi

Tax cuts are an investment in working families. — Tommy Thompson

It has been obvious all along, to anyone paying attention, that the politicians shouting loudest about deficits are actually using deficit hysteria as a cover story for their real agenda, which is top-down class warfare. To put it in Romneyesque terms, it's all about finding an excuse to slash programs that help people who like to watch Nascar events, even while lavishing tax cuts on people who like to own Nascar teams. — Paul Krugman

The whole world organizes itself around the fact that people manage to get their awkward bodies in position to fuck, an achievement honored by toasters, tandems, and tax cuts. — Lucy Ellmann

When Republicans are down, in disarray, feeling blue, they turn to a tried-and-true elixir, sort of a Doctor Feelgood medicine for them. It's called tax cuts. — Paul Gigot

I am the candidate of tax cuts, repealing Obamacare, repealing Dodd-Frank, letting the markets work, coming up with patient-and-doctor-centered healthcare solutions instead of more big government - and just generally getting government off the backs of small businesses. — Wendy E. Long

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

The year Reagan was sworn into office, 1981, the United States was the largest importer of raw materials in the world and the world's largest exporter of finished, manufactured goods. ... Today, things are totally reversed: We are now the world's mining pit, the largest exporter of raw materials, and the world's largest importer of finished, manufactured goods.

This has resulted in an enormous trade imbalance, one that has grown from a modest $15 billion deficit in 1981 to an enormous $539 billion deficit by 2012. — Thom Hartmann

John Kerry said today that he wants to get rid of tax cuts for the rich and his wife said, 'Hey, shut up! What's the matter with you?! Are you nuts?!' — Jay Leno

There were 23 or 24 separate tax cuts during the Giuliani administration. I'd love to be able to equal that. — Joe Lhota

I still believe a majority of Republicans are for income tax cuts. — Mary Fallin

The tax relief that this Congress has given now in terms of four tax cuts has overwhelmingly gone to the people at the very top of the income scale in America. — Richard Neal

The best way to encourage economic vitality and growth is to let people keep their own money.When you spend your own money, somebody's got to manufacture that which you're spending it on. You see, more money in the private sector circulating makes it more likely that our economy will grow. And, incredibly enough, some want to take away part of those tax cuts. They've been reading the wrong textbook. You don't raise somebody's taxes in the middle of a recession. You trust people with their own money. And, by the way, that money isn't the government's money; it's the people's money. — George W. Bush

A Harris poll I've seen says only 12 percent of the electorate names taxes as one of the most important issues facing the nation. Voters put tax cuts dead last, behind education, Social Security, health care, Medicare and poverty. — Lane Evans

And then you've got Lieberman, who is for the war. And thinks the tax cuts could really help. He's basically for people who want to vote for Bush but don't think Bush is Jewish enough. — Jon Stewart

What we want as an economy is companies and people, you know, working hard to come up with creative ways to be more productive. We don't want companies and people working hard to lobby government for special tax cuts. — Adam Davidson

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

The fact is that Democrats are not for tax cuts. — Rosa DeLauro

Tax cuts should be for life, not just for Christmas. — George Osborne

If, if more stimulus means more tax cuts to small businesses, if, if more stimulus means middle class tax cuts, then I'm for it. — Alexi Giannoulias

What Democrats haven't focused on are the kind of policies that would promote economic growth - such as making permanent the 2001/2003 tax cuts, opening up federal lands to more energy production, and reforming government to reduce its burden on business. — Bob Beauprez

What does it mean when Republicans and Democrats alike warn us about the 'pain' involved in cutting government spending - in their spending less of our money? For the average citizen, what pain is there in his keeping more of his money to invest it the way he wants? Taxes cost people. Tax cuts do not cost government. — Theodore J. Forstmann

[T]hese tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are also the tax cuts that are least likely to promote growth. — Barack Obama

To do what we are doing in this budget to our children, cutting their health care funds, decreasing opportunity, simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief, and we need to reverse it. — Tom Allen

Over the past 100 years, there have been three major periods of tax-rate cuts in the U.S.: the Harding-Coolidge cuts of the mid-1920s; the Kennedy cuts of the mid-1960s; and the Reagan cuts of the early 1980s. Each of these periods of tax cuts was remarkably successful as measured by virtually any public policy metric. — Arthur Laffer

The stimulus legislation, technically known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was a mixture of tax cuts for families and businesses; increased transfer payments, like unemployment insurance; and increased direct government spending, like infrastructure investment. — Christina Romer

tenure at Treasury was not as successful as his career at Alcoa. Almost immediately after taking office he began focusing on a couple of key issues, including worker safety, job creation, executive accountability, and fighting African poverty, among other initiatives. However, O'Neill's politics did not line up with those of President Bush, and he launched an internal fight opposing Bush's proposed tax cuts. He was asked to resign at the end of 2002. "What I thought was the right thing for economic policy was the opposite of what the White House wanted," O'Neill told me. "That's not good for a treasury secretary, so I got fired. — Charles Duhigg

All Democrats for the last 30 years have tried to stimulate the economy by giving 'tax cuts' to people who don't pay taxes. — Ann Coulter

Maybe that first, gigantic deficit the Reaganites piled up was an accident, just a combination of deluded 'supply side' tax cuts and a huge bag of good stuff for the Pentagon. But pretty quickly conservatives discovered that deficits, when done correctly, did something really cool: deficits defunded the Left. — Thomas Frank

You can't be evangelical and associate yourself with Jesus and what he says about the poor and just have no other domestic concerns than tax cuts for wealthy people. — Jim Wallis

Under current law, on January 1st, 2013, there is going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases. — Ben Bernanke

Most recently, Speaker of the House John Boehner (who has said he would commit suicide before voting to increase the minimum wage unless said increase were tied to massive tax cuts for the wealthy and their corporations)53 suggested that what's been holding back job creation in America is not the lack of employment openings but "this idea that has been born . . . that you know, I really don't have to work . . . I think I'd rather just sit around."54 According to conservative leaders, many Americans actually enjoy long-term unemployment. — Tim Wise

Obama and the Democrats' preposterous argument is that we are just one more big tax increase away from solving our economic problems. The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the primary driver of the short-term deficit is not tax cuts but the lack of any meaningful economic growth over the last half decade. — Bob Beauprez

It's really changed me. For the first time I'm in favor of the Bush tax cuts. — Ken Jennings

What we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues. — Thomas Friedman

The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little. — John F. Kerry

The [Donald] Trump plan would increase the national debt a little over a $1 trillion a year, the Trump plan would reduce taxes at all income levels with, of course, the biggest tax cuts going to the richest taxpayers as they always do. — Lawrence O'Donnell

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

Tax cuts create more jobs and this is something we as Republicans have to do a better job of marketing. — Pete Sessions

Now, I do think when we move into 2012 and '13 when, presumably, the economy is on firmer ground, I would allow the tax rates for upper-income individuals to revert back to where they were before the cuts in the 1990s. I think at that point it makes perfect sense. — Mark Zandi

What Mae West said about sex is true about taxes. All tax cuts are good tax cuts; even bad tax cuts are good tax cuts. — Grover Norquist

If you're really concerned about deficits, you cannot take seriously a budget that would give $30 billion a year worth of tax cuts to not just the top 1 percent but the top 0.1 percent. — Barack Obama

We're going to have to invest in the American people again, in tax cuts for the middle class, in health care for all Americans, and college for every young person who wants to go. In businesses that can create the new energy economy of the future. In policies that will lift wages and will grow our middle class. These are the policies I have fought for my entire career. — Barack Obama

Republicans drove us into debt with two wars and the Bush tax cuts. Now they want to pay for that debt with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is not only immoral it is bad economics. Why do Republicans always have money for war but not for those in need? — Bernie Sanders

In Greece, Italy and, to a lesser extent, France, unsustainable tax cuts and spending sprees added to households' estimates of their private wealth relative to their wage income. — Edmund Phelps

It's common sense to be for middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts on small businesses, to be for not allowing Medicare to be turned into voucher care. — Mark Takano

Liberal Democrats are inexorably opposed to tax cuts, because tax cuts give people more power, and take away from the role of government. — Rush Limbaugh