Quotes & Sayings About Tax Reform

When Mitt Romney says he wants to reform the tax code, hold on to your wallets. We know Mitt Romney never met a tax haven he didn't like. But his new favorite tax haven is actually not the Cayman Islands - its Paul Ryan's budget. — Chuck Schumer

Tax reform means, 'Don't tax you, don't tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.' — Russell B. Long

We must move from revenue-neutral to revenue-reducing tax reform, because the federal government spends far too much money. — Carly Fiorina

I talk about the three R's, that jobs equals three R's: Repeal Obamacare. Reform our tax-and-spend policies to make us the most competitive in the world. And relight America with American energy. — Keith Rothfus

Romney said that his tax reform proposal is 'very similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan.' How I wish it were. — Erskine Bowles

We shouldn't be debating whether to deal with the current code by allowing it to be extended or not. We should have a president who shows leadership and comes to Congress and says: 'You know what? We need to reform this whole tax code.' — Rob Portman

We need to enact fundamental tax reform. The weight and complexity of our 73,000-page tax code are crushing everyday Americans. We need to radically simplify the tax code so that we can re-start the real engine of growth in our economy. That means our tax code needs to go from 73,000 pages down to about three pages. — Carly Fiorina

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

We need real tax reform which makes the rich and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands. — Bernie Sanders

The Democrats and Republicans need to come together. I've criticized Democrats for their unwillingness to address entitlement reform and Social Security and Medicare. Republicans, on the other hand, never saw a tax that they liked, even when it meant closing tax loopholes. They don't want to in any way support any revenue enhancements. — Antonio Villaraigosa

The introduction of a substantial Government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available,with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation in the United States. — John Maynard Keynes

Tax reform and expanded trade are going to be so important to the economy of Illinois, particularly the 11th Congressional District, which is a major manufacturing and a major agricultural district. — Jerry Weller

Tax reform is taking the taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and putting taxes on things that haven't been taxed before. — Art Buchwald

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.

What I heard was that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory. He'll have Social Security reform passed, that he'll have tax reform passed, that he'll have conservative judges on the courts. — Pat Robertson

We need to stop kicking the can down the road and rethink our entire tax system toward long-term, comprehensive tax reform. — Brad Schneider

One such troubling provision is a tax increase to pay for the $635 billion included in the budget for health care 'reserve funds.' Health care reform is desperately needed in America, but I'm concerned that $635 billion will be a down payment on socialized medicine, causing the impersonal rationing of health care and destroying the doctor-patient relationship. — Paul Broun

What we need is fundamental tax reform. — Rob Portman

I would go to them and I would explain this is the price of going forward. We're going to move ahead in all these other areas. We're moving ahead in tax reform and GST, we are moving ahead on trade, but this will not be done at the cost of the environment. — Brian Mulroney

We pursued the wrong policies. George Bush is not on the ballot. Bill Clinton is not on the ballot. Mitt Romney is on the ballot, and Barack Obama is on the ballot. And Mitt Romney is proposing tax reform, regulatory reform, a wise budget strategy and trade. The president has proposed tax increases. — Glenn Hubbard

A balanced program for tax reform based upon the common sense idea of lowering taxes out of surplus revenues. — Andrew Mellon

Fundamental [tax] reform almost always runs the risk of making things worse. — Dan Rostenkowski

Actually, I'm a strong supporter of comprehensive tax reform. — John S. Watson

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to get business lobbyists in a car and drive them around with a gun to their heads for an hour, explaining: We can give you regulatory reform, OSHA reform, tax relief, tort reform. But if we give you immigration, we won't be in a position to give you anything else, ever again, and you'll have to take your chances with Nancy Pelosi. The Chamber of Commerce has got to learn: You can't have it all. — Ann Coulter

I'm not feeling undertaxed. Tax reform is an important issue. You have to have an inherent sense of fairness. — Stephen A. Schwarzman

The important thing about tax reform is you make the tax code less complicated, easier for people to understand. — Grover Norquist

Input of public judgement for any major tax reform. — Newt Gingrich

The American economy is driven by small business. And there's nothing basically to create incentives for small businesses. We've done no tax reform. They're the highest-taxed group in the country. And corporations can go anywhere they want and do whatever they want. Small businesses have to stay ... — Ed Rollins

If you have to change the law to get more money, that's a tax increase, and Americans for Tax Reform supports all efforts of tax reform, getting rid of deductions or credits, or something that's misclassified, as long as you at the same time reduce rates so that it's not a hidden tax. — Grover Norquist

I'm not only a lawyer, I have a post doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I work in serious scholarship and work in the United States federal tax court. My husband and I raised five kids. We've raised 23 foster children. We've applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids. — Michele Bachmann

In my view, until the U.S. tax policy is revised, not just tax extenders but the reform of tax policy, it makes it very attractive for us to invest on acquisition overseas. — Louis R. Chenevert

[T]ax cuts are not just something that all taxpayers deserve, but also the best way to curb government spending. It is the best kind of tax reform. If the money never reaches the table, Congress can't gobble it up. — Zell Miller

I think we can have some tax reform, but that doesn't mean tax increases. We ought to make the, the rates flatter. We ought to get rid of a bunch of those loopholes. — John Kasich

Reform immigration to make it easy for individuals to come over here, be documented, pay taxes - immigration reform is needed to state that its about work, its not about welfare ... Set up a grace period where they can get a work permit ... social security card so that they can pay income tax, social security, Medicare. — Gary Johnson

The healthcare reform bill now includes a tanning booth tax of 10 percent. You know what this means? This whole thing could be funded by the cast of 'Jersey Shore.' — Jay Leno

To introduce a whole new tax regime, that would be modern tax reform. But that's too big a task. — Chuck Schumer

Rather than passing a thousand pages of tax reform legislation and restarting the tax code manipulation process, we should change the paradigm. It is time to eliminate the IRS and repeal the 16th Amendment. — Jim Bridenstine

We are committed to doing trade, tax reform, infrastructure. All we need is someone that wants to work with us. — Kevin McCarthy

There's nothing good about being certain about things. And I don't think there's any real talent in using language in a manipulative way, with phrases like "tax relief" or "Social Security reform." It's politically clever, but it's also completely disingenuous, and it's not something to aspire to. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I wish that the Democrats would put some effort into Social Security reform, illegal immigration's reform, tax reform, or some of the other real issues that are out there. — Jack Kingston

House GOP Leader John Boehner on Monday rightly sounded the alarm over billions in stimulus tax dollars that could potentially go to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). But the Republican leadership has only scratched the surface over what amounts to a bottomless slush fund for a bigger coalition of housing entitlement thugs. — Michelle Malkin

We have to have structural entitlement reform, major spending cuts and not tax increase-retardants on economic growth to reverse our current course toward national bankruptcy, but Obama steadfastly remains on the wrong side of all these solutions. — David Limbaugh

The day after Republicans won solid majorities in the House and Senate, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader-to-be Mitch McConnell outlined priorities for the newly elected Congress. High on the list is fundamental tax reform. In addition to overhauling the federal tax code, however, Congress should rein in the Internal Revenue Service. — Cleta Mitchell

Our best days are in front of us. We can reform those entitlements, we can change that corporate tax code and lower it. We can put America back on track on a growth level and a growth rate that we've never seen in the history of this country. — Rick Perry

What a country of lazy shits, with fucking hypocritical politicians claiming that people actually wanted to work if they could. Norwegians voted for the Socialist Party because it made it a human right to shirk their jobs, and who the hell wouldn't vote for a party that gave you three days off without a doctor's note, gave you carte blanche to sit at home and jerk off or go skiing or recover from a hangover? The Socialist Party knew, of course, what a perk this was, but still tried to appear responsible, preened themselves with their "trust in most people" and declared the right to malinger as some kind of social reform. The Progress Party was even more fucking infuriating, buying itself votes with tax cuts and hardly bothering to conceal the fact. — Jo Nesbo

I'm not for a temporary war tax. We're putting actual dollars in one way or the other, and so if we're gonna look at taxes, we ought to look at a comprehensive tax reform policy. — Stephen Pagliuca

There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact
in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself
of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were. Were I, for instance, a political conservative who opposed using taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PC progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as "low-income" or "economically disadvantaged" or "pre-prosperous" rather than constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates. [ ... ] In other words, PCE acts as a form of censorship, and censorship always serves the status quo. — David Foster Wallace

Tax reform is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. — Max Baucus

We all want a simpler code, but tax reform is about much more. It is about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share. The tax code is also used to promote behavior that we as a nation support, such as home ownership or charitable contributions. — Charles B. Rangel

I'm in favor of doing tax reform, but I think tax reform ought to be revenue neutral as it was back during the [Ronald] Reagan years. We've resolved this issue. — Mitch McConnell

Obama's Democrats have become the part of no. Real cuts to federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no. — Charles Krauthammer

The pressure to reduce health care costs is aimed only at the treatment of real diseases. There is no pressure to reduce the costs of treating fictitious diseases. On the contrary, there is pressure to define ever more types of undesirable behaviors as mental disorders or addictions and to spend ever more tax dollars on developing new psychiatric diagnoses and facilities for storing and treating the victims of such diseases, whose members now include alcoholics, drug abusers, smokers, overeaters, self-starvers, gamblers, etc. — Thomas Szasz

The key to revenue growth is tax reform that closes loopholes and that is pro-growth. Then with a growing economy, that's where your revenue growth comes in, not from higher taxes. — John Hoeven

When Congress talks of tax reform, grab your wallet and run for cover. — Steve Symms

Why is it that half of the households in America pay zero income tax? We need some real tax reform. — John Cornyn

Corporate tax reform is nice in theory but tough in practice. It most likely requires lower tax rates and the closing of loopholes, which many companies are sure to fight. And whatever new, lower tax rate is determined, there will probably be another country willing to lower its rate further, creating a sad race to zero. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

Virginia 's tax system needs to be fixed. The time to act is now. Do not send me any more studies. Do not send me another piecemeal approach that confuses tinkering with real reform. — Mark Warner

Tax (reform) is ultimately a decision about values. — Bill Bradley

Basically the tax reform ideas are to clean up the tax system and to eliminate the loopholes that only very few make use of, to eliminate the possibility of people making millions of dollars every year and not paying any tax at all through oil depletion allowances and things like that. — Warren Beatty

I'm for tax reform, not tax increases. — Grover Norquist

Americans for Tax Reform is a national taxpayer organization dedicated to opposing any and all tax increases. We work at the national, state and local level for lower taxes, less government spending and limited government. — Grover Norquist

We're going to do tax reform to let people keep more of what they earn, grow an economy, and be able to save for your children's future and buy a new house. — Kevin McCarthy

Now, the president would like to do tax reform, which would obviously lower rates for most people in America and make the tax code fair and get rid of loopholes and special treatment. But absent tax reform, the president believes the right way to get our fiscal house in order is ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. — David Plouffe

The billionaires pay an effective tax rate lower than nurses or truck drivers. That makes no sense at all. There has to be real tax reform, and the wealthiest and large corporations will pay. — Bernie Sanders

Any substantial tax reform would involve substantial redistributions of tax burdens and substantial changes in asset values, and you need some 'lubrication' (i.e., transition rules). — Robert Reischauer

President Obama has ignored or dismissed proposals that would address our anti-competitive tax code and unsustainable trajectory of federal debt - including his own bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform - and submitted no plan for entitlement reform. — Glenn Hubbard

In 2013 Citigroup had profits of $6.4 billion in the United States. They paid no federal income tax and, in fact, received a rebate from the IRS of $260 million. That same year J.P. Morgan had $17.2 billion in profits in the U.S. They also paid no federal income tax. Do you think it's time for tax reform? — Bernie Sanders

Tax reform has been used as a crutch, as a smokescreen and as candy coating for the hard choices that have to be made. — Sir Arthur Sullivan

When I worked in the White House for President Carter, we tried to do comprehensive tax reform and we made some progress, and other presidents have as well. — David Rubenstein

What is needed is a form of tax which not only spares the small man at the expense of his wealthier rival, but actually subsidizes the small man where subsidy is necessary. — Hilaire Belloc

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. — Ronald Reagan

I ... now see a rare opportunity to push across the goal line much of the unfinished business of America: investing in our infrastructure and workers, universal healthcare, comprehensive immigration reform and scrubbing a tax code that's out of shape and behind the times. — Xavier Becerra

There'll be some savings from preventing double dipping by public servants which are currently able to access not one but two fully tax payer funded schemes and of course there will be out paid parental leave levy. So all up not only is this an important economic reform, an important reform to have to grow our economy more strongly, it also will leave the budget better off which will help us fix the mess that Labor has created with the budget. — Tony Abbott

Moreover, from reforming the tax code to our immigration system, to commonsense legal reform, President Bush put America on notice that he will continue fighting to make the country, and the world, a better place for future generations. — Jim Sensenbrenner

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

The question is: What can we, as citizens, do to reform our tax system? As you know, under our three-branch system of government, the tax laws are created by: Satan. But he works through the Congress, so that's where we must focus our efforts. — Dave Barry

You know, people like Hillary Clinton think you grow the economy by growing Washington. I think most of us in America understand that people, not the government creates jobs. And one of the best things we can do is get the government out of the way, put in reign in all the out of control regulations, put in place and all of the above energy policy, give people the education, the skills that the need to succeed, and lower the tax rate and reform the tax code. — Scott Walker

I may sound naive, since everyone's decided the next two years are going to be all about 2016, but I look at what's happened over the years when there's been divided government. That's when we've done tax reform, that's when we've done entitlement reform - to move this economy forward on these big issues. — Rob Portman

Tax increases slow economic growth. Why would you raise taxes? We need to reform spending, the tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities can never be funded by tax increases, that can only be fixed by reducing spending. — Grover Norquist

Nisbet could find much to disturb a traditional conservative even in the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan: "President Reagan's deepest soul is not Republican-conservative but New Deal-Second World War Democrat. Thus his well noted preference for citing FDR and Kennedy as noble precedents for his actions rather than Coolidge, Hoover, or even Eisenhower. The word 'revolution' springs lightly from his lips, for anything from tax reform to narcotics prosecution. Reagan's passion for crusades, moral and military, is scarcely American-conservative. — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

I think in 2012 one of the primary issues that will get a lot of discussion will be comprehensive tax reform. — Tom Reed

A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform. — Russell B. Long

There's been a lot said about Social Security reform. What has been left out of the debate is the double tax on Social Security benefits. I believe it's time to get rid of a tax that punishes seniors and discourages work and retirement savings. — Rob Simmons

Our tax policies, the tax relief and reform we passed in 2003 and 2005, helped get government out of the way of America's entrepreneurs, and our unemployment rate is now lower than it was in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. — Marsha Blackburn

It's not coincidence that the U.S. is in last place in the world in terms of corporate tax rate. It's because our system is set up to block tax reform. — David Malpass

I want to reform the tax code so that it's simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 - the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot. — Barack Obama

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times. — Lawrence W. Reed

Winning control of the Senate would allow Republicans to pass a whole range of measures now being held up by Reid, often at the behest of the White House. Make it a major reform agenda. The centerpiece might be tax reform, both corporate and individual. It is needed, popular and doable. Then go for the low-hanging fruit enjoying wide bipartisan support, such as the Keystone XL pipeline and natural gas exports, most especially to Eastern Europe. One could then add border security, energy deregulation and health-care reform that repeals the more onerous Obamacare mandates. — Charles Krauthammer

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

This country pays a price whenever our economy fails to deliver rising living standards to our citizens - which is exactly what has been the case for years now. We pay a price when our political system cannot come together and agree on the difficult but necessary steps to rein in entitlement spending or reform our tax system. — Chris Christie