“Do I think Donald Trump can run the country a lot better and get along with other countries like Russia? Absolutely he can do a better job. He can create a stimulus. He can lower taxes.” ThinkingCountryRunningJobsCan DoTrumpTaxesRussiaOther CountriesStimulusBetter Jobs Author:Doug Ford, Jr.
“One thing I think we have to do is to make sure that the undocumented workers who are living in America today, that they have to take responsibility. They've got to register, pay a fine, pay their back taxes, learn English and then get on a pathway in which they could have the prospect of being here legally.” ThinkingTodayAmericaPayResponsibilityOne ThingFineTaxesWorkersTaking ResponsibilityPathwaysRegisterAmerica TodayUndocumented Workers Author:Barack Obama
“You have a sense that [Donald] Trump will probably reimagine where the Republican Party is on that issue and some others. But then I think conservatives may win in some areas, too - tax reform. So it's just - it's an enormously exciting time in terms of the possibilities.” ThinkingMayWinningTermPartyIssuesPossibilityTrumpRepublicanTaxesAreasExcitingReformRepublican PartyTax Reform Author:Margaret Hoover
“Trump has to do what Reagan did. Trump's gotta go on the air and tell us what his tax plan is and put it in our faces and put them on the spot. That's what I think he should do.” ThinkingShouldFacesPlansAirGoes OnTrumpTaxesSpots Author:Scott Baio
“We can't afford to waste people. We can't afford to have people think the game is over before it's begun. We've got to be saying to the Canadian people: you can't tax cut your way to a productive 21st-century economy. You can talk that talk, but it's not going to give you a productive 21st-century economy, because it will scythe apart the public goods that make prosperity possible. That's what we've got to say, and so we shall.” PeopleThinkingWayGivingGamesEconomyCuttingCenturyTaxesWasteProsperityProductiveGoods21st CenturyTax CutsScythes Author:Michael Ignatieff
“I think that [Barack Obama] does say something that's - that is telling on that score, when he talks about the [George W.] Bush tax cuts and the swap he makes after the midterm elections, which is he doesn't agree with the Bush tax cuts.” ThinkingDoeCuttingTaxesElectionAgreeBarackScoreTax CutsMidtermsMidterm Elections Author:Ron Suskind
“I think the Ronald Reagan tax reform proposals are a step toward distributive justice. They redistribute the tax burden more equitably and more progressively among individuals and call upon business to carry a somewhat larger proportion of the total tax load. Both of these are steps toward equity and distributive justice.” ThinkingIndividualJusticeTaxesBurdenEquityProposal Author:Bruce Babbitt
“So, what people are actually left with to spend is maybe 25 to 30% of their income on goods and services, after paying taxes and after paying the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate). Whether it's housing insurance or mortgage insurance. So there's an idea of distracting people. Don't think of your condition. Think of how the overall economy is doing. But don't think of the economy as an overall unit. Think of the stock market as the economy. Think of the rich people as the economy. Look at the yachts that are made. Somebody's living a lot better. Couldn't it be you?” PeopleThinkingRealEconomyRichTaxesFinanceRich PeopleThink Of YouMortgageYacht Author:Michael Hudson
“I don't think most Americans understand that, for certain very wealthy people, our federal income tax system is a subsidy system that makes them richer.” PeopleThinkingTaxesWealthyIncome Tax Author:Hillary Clinton
“Seen in the context of Donald Trump having committed sales tax fraud in the past, which is indisputable, I think that it's reasonable for the American public to ask, did you go beyond what's lawful, maybe scandalously lawful, but lawful, and violate the law?” ThinkingPastTaxesCommittedFraud Author:Hillary Clinton
“The problem is that everybody, everybody - Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, everybody - on the Republican side said they can't do tax reform until Obamacare is improved, they can't do it. I think a lot is known about Obamacare. I think that's why it's so consistently polls with people opposed to it. I think people know how much it's cost particularly to people that have entered the exchanges, but I think everybody does. there's not a person in the world in this country who is not aware of the oppressive, out of any scope of normalcy costs and prices associated with it.” PeopleThinkingWorldCountryProblemRepublicanTaxesConsistently Author:Rush Limbaugh
“Tariffs are in the end taxes. And somebody has to pay that tax. I think one thing people are forgetting is that trade disputes are two-sided. When the United States imposes tariffs on a partner like Canada, there is always a possibility that Canada will say that's not fair and retaliate. And at that point, you have to ask the question, - which U.S. industry will suffer because the Canadians retaliated against it?” PeopleThinkingSufferingForgetPossibilityTaxesTrade Author:Greg Ip
“If the tea party folks would go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God's sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they're being killed and our planet's being injured by what's happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That's something worth getting angry about.” ThinkingPartyTaxesTeaTea Party Author:John F. Kerry
“The 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.” PeopleThinkingMeanTaxesContradictoryTobaccoObscene Author:Rush Limbaugh
“The state of New York's got this group of people called smokers, and they know they're addicted, and despite all the efforts to make 'em quit, they know they can't. So they just see a pile of money when they see these people. And they think because they're addicted, they can't not buy the product, so they just keep raising taxes and raising taxes, and they expect people just to come up with the money from somewhere and pay it.” PeopleThinkingEffortTaxesQuitting Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I thought you liberals cared about people, but here you're perfectly content to get them addicted to tobacco and make them pay taxes through the nose and continue to pay taxes through the nose and raise their taxes. And then you try to make 'em think you care about 'em by running PSAs telling them how they shouldn't smoke and how they should quit. You're exactly right. If they really cared, they would ban the product, but they can't, because the revenue from tobacco taxes - I'm not kidding you - funds children's health care programs, and a number of other things as well.” PeopleThinkingTryingCareRunningTaxesProgramQuittingHealth CareFundTobacco Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I think what the Fed fears is that, if Donald Trump gets big tax cuts and big spending increases that take effect right now, when the economy is close to full employment, they will have to raise rates more rapidly.” ThinkingEconomyCuttingTaxesRate Author:David Wessel
“I don't think Democrats are ever going to get excited about cutting Medicaid to pay for tax cuts to wealthy people. I just don't think that's the direction we should be going in our country. The 1 percent's doing very well in America. They don't need more help. But Medicaid does.” PeopleThinkingCountryHelpingCuttingTaxesDemocratExcitedWealthy Author:Claire McCaskill
“Almost three years ago, when I retired, my wife and I were talking about our philanthropic work and how does one help give opportunity, particularly to kids growing up in very disadvantaged situations.And my initial kind of sense was, the government does that primarily, and what we should mostly do is pay our taxes. My wife said, no, I don't think that's quite right for us. We need to do more. We can do better.” ThinkingGivingKindHelpingKidsOpportunitySituationGrowing UpWifeTaxesMy WifeRetiredPhilanthropic Author:Steve Ballmer
“The Democrats would want to keep the taxes. And Republicans want to do away with taxes that are driving up the costs of premiums. So, I think it would be hard to see a scenario where Democrats would be willing to come to the table in good faith and actually work with us on a solution that meets those requirements.” ThinkingRepublicanTaxesSolutionsDemocratDrivingGood Faith Author:John Thune
“I think the reason that the Trump economic agenda is beneficial is, he is doing the right things. He wants to see growth, he wants to see to lower taxes, he wants to see this cash pile sitting outside the US return to the US. All of these things I think will be good for the US economy, and as I've said, if the US economy grows, the global economy benefits hugely.” ThinkingReasonGrowthEconomyEconomicTaxesBe GoodRight ThingDoing The Right ThingGlobal Economy Author:Martin Gilbert
“Donald Trump was tainted every kind of way you could imagine. I mean, no way in the world that Donald Trump is a champion of working people. He has hurt workers in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Florida, multiple bankruptcies, never showed his taxes. I don't know any good thing this guy's ever done. And yet, because he was able to throw hate and poison on Hillary Clinton, he was able to somehow prevail at least until the Electoral College. I think he was skilled at just sort of, like, keeping the attention on anyone but himself. He is the most outrageous person ever to win a presidential election.” PeopleThinkingWorldKindMeanDoneHateWinningHurtAttentionImagineCollegeTaxesElectionGood ThingsClintonPresidentialChampionMultipleBankruptcyPresidential Election Author:Keith Ellison
“In order to make the tough decisions we have to know what our values are and who we're fighting for and our priorities and if we are spending $300 billion on tax cuts for people who don't need them and weren't even asking for them, and we are leaving out health care which is crushing on people all across the country, then I think we have made a bad decision and I want to make sure we're not shortchanging our long term priorities.” PeopleThinkingLongCountryCareValuesFightingTermDecisionCuttingTaxesToughLeavingPrioritiesHealth CareLong TermCrushBad DecisionTough Decisions Author:Barack Obama
“What I'm angry about, and I've gone on record saying this, is I think that financiers get away with murder. They realize they can get something for nothing and they won't settle for anything else. There's something called a Schedule F. If I work for a Schedule F contract that basically means I'm doing the movie for free because by the time I pay all my commissions and taxes there's barely anything left for me to live on. This whole notion that you do work that you love for very little money and then you go out and do something you hate to make money.” ThinkingMeanHateRealizingTaxesMurderMaking MoneySettlingGet Away Author:Michael Shannon
“The country doesn't owe you anything because you're an American or especially because you have a college degree. Now, if you think... If you are a college student and you've got a degree and you're out there and you can't find a job and if you think - if you agree with Obama that the Bush tax cuts ought to sunset - $700 billion ought to be taken out of the private sector and sent to Obama, then you deserve to be out of work for the rest of your life because that $700 billion taken out of the private sector could be used to grow businesses and hire people.” PeopleThinkingCountryTakenCuttingStudentsCollegeTaxesDeserveAgreeSunsetCollege StudentsCollege Degree Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I don't think "Reganomics" will ever fully end. I mean, Reaganomics, to put it simply, was trying to get low taxes for wealthy people. And wealthy people are still there pushing for low taxes.” PeopleThinkingTryingMeanTaxesWealthy Author:Dean Baker
“President Obama, I voted for him. I think he's a mature politician, but here's what happened. Obama wanted a green economy. He spent billions of dollars of tax money to create a green economy and it didn't happen. The question is why.” ThinkingPresidentEconomyPoliticianTaxesMaturePresident Obama Author:Jeremy Rifkin
“We are under the stifling regulation and taxes of a predominantly left-wing type of thinking and philosophy. The eight years of Barack Obama have shrouded this country in punitive regulations. We haven't had economic growth higher than one and a half percent for the last eight or nine years, and that was done on purpose. There have been robust times in the past, and there are a lot of people right now that are doing well and are growing. But generally it ought to be much better in the past. There needs to be an economic revival.” PeopleThinkingCountryDonePhilosophyPastPurposeGrowthEconomicTaxesBarackRevivalEconomic Growth Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I do think that Republicans are flirting with their tax cut, which has always been the narcotic of Republicans, that they in fact have to at some point, with any remote pretense of candor, abandon any pretense of a balanced budget.I mean, they talk about - because they are going to finance the tax cut by tax cuts. That's how they're going to do it. And I do think that the will is there right now in the Congress to act. I think they will be as close to unity as you will see on Capitol Hill this year.” ThinkingMeanCuttingRepublicanTaxesUnityFinanceHillsAbandonFlirtingPretense Author:Mark Shields
“I think that Democrats have to think through answers we haven't in the past: How we are going to create those jobs? How should we restructure the entire tax code? Should we have things like a payroll tax, when jobs are so scarce? They weren't - basically the architecture of our employment law, tax law, all these things were from the 1930s - and I do think that one benefit of Donald Trump, which is not worth it, but one perverse thing is, he has widened the scope of things that we should discuss.” ThinkingPastTaxesDemocratArchitectureCodeWorth It1930sPayroll Author:Neera Tanden
“I think everybody benefitted from what I am calling a bubble finance system, a bubble economy and if we're ever going to right the system, we're going to have to stop this explosion of the federal debt. We need huge spending cuts, OK? Don't get me wrong, we need to raise regular taxes too but even beyond that it's not going to hurt if we want to reset the system to ask those who have benefitted disproportionately - remember, we got $60 trillion of net worth in the household sector. $45 trillion of that belongs to the top 5 percent.” ThinkingRememberHurtEconomyCuttingTaxesFinanceBubbles Author:David Stockman
“It started with Ronald Reagan, when he took away the financing to the California universities. It used to be cheap to send your kids to the UCs. They'd call it an investment, because the more you educate people, the more they'll pay in taxes, because they'll get better jobs. But Reagan said, "No, it's a cost, so you're going to have to pay the cost." So now people can't afford to get an education. Anyway, I don't want to get too political, but yeah, I think the spirit of this country is finally coming back, and hopefully it will triumph.” PeopleThinkingCountryKidsPoliticalSpiritTaxesInvestmentHopefullyGet BetterEducateFinancing Author:Tim Matheson
“When we get this health care done, America, we're going to be able to have regulations on how heavy you can be. And we're going to be able to set up various tax penalties, for example, if you weigh more than we think you should or we just may not let you get on that airplane because your carbon footprint, you're gonna waste so much jet fuel, we may not let you get on that bus, we may not let you drive your car, we may not build a bigger doorway for you to get through, may not give you a bigger toilet.'” ThinkingGivingDoneCareCarTaxesVariousHealth CareBusAirplaneJetFootprint Author:Rush Limbaugh
“When you think of policies that are going to address inequality of wealth, you have to be very thoughtful about what economists call "incidence of taxes." If most of the savings is being done by capitalists, and you tax the return on capital, then they will have less to invest. That would mean, over the long run, that the rate of interest would go up. That would therefore undo some of the intent to lower the income of capitalists.” ThinkingMeanLongDoneRunningInterestWealthPolicyTaxesRateInequalityThoughtfulCapitalistEconomist Author:Joseph Stiglitz
“A tobacco industry has been a fairly linear and predictable industry. You know what's going to happen every year. You know from time to time you are going to have a tax increase, you are going to have regulatory restriction, but, as it applies to everybody, I think we are doing very well. But now it's much more technology-driven. Competitors other than our traditional competitors can come in, whether legitimate or fly-by-night ones, and you have to anticipate all those things. The whole organization has to gear up to this new reality and these new competitive rules around it.” ThinkingRealityTaxesPredictableTobacco Author:Andre Calantzopoulos
“To really tackle poverty, politicians, activists, academics will all have to think outside their boxes, will have to start developing much more integrated approaches to these problems. And a large part of this will involve working out ways to push for living wages. Partly this will involve re-empowering the union movement, which has been massively weakened in recent decades. Partly it will involve a willingness to restructure tax codes to penalize companies that don't provide basic benefits and decent wages to employees.” ThinkingProblemPovertyPoliticianTaxesWork OutCodeDecentEmployeeWillingnessActivistIntegrated Author:Sasha Abramsky
“The poverty we see in America is now too widespread, and too complex, for easy fixes. But I do think we can reimagine many of our institutions and can create new ones in ways that would be effective. We could, for example, create social insurance systems, similar to social security, such as that we went through in 2008-9. We could create a financial transaction tax, oil profit taxes and a fairer estate tax system, and we could plow much of the revenue raised from these into job training programs, into better education infrastructure, into an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.” ThinkingEasyPovertySecurityTaxesTrainingProgramFinancialIncome Tax Author:Sasha Abramsky
“I think the Republican tax law is so bad that it almost guarantees a Republican victory, precisely because it's so bad. The seeming irony is that it's so bad that it enables the Democratic Party to think, "A-ha, all we have to do is be the lesser evil.” ThinkingEvilPartyVictoryRepublicanTaxesDemocraticIronyDemocratic Party Author:Michael Hudson
“There is this fashionable progressive notion that everything is so completely political that the idea we could have some sort of neutral legal process is practically utopian - because we all know that the more money you have, the more rights you can exercise in this society. But I don't think that you deal with income inequality by limiting the First Amendment rights of affluent people. I'd rather see people screw around with the tax code to redistribute wealth a little bit than screw around with the First Amendment.” PeopleThinkingPoliticalWealthExerciseTaxesInequalityCodeProgressiveFirst AmendmentFashionableUtopian Author:Wendy Kaminer
“When the president talks about tax reform, he talks about the people who will benefit. He talks about American jobs. He talks about the fact that we're going to be taking money that's overseas and bringing it back to the United States so that it will employ American workers. I think that focus again on the American working and middle class is- is-is to me the most thoughtful and, in some ways, the most genius part of Trump's approach to politics.” PeopleThinkingPresidentFocusGeniusTaxesThoughtfulMiddle Class Author:James Vance
“There are three legs of the stool; spending, entitlements and making the tax code fair and equitable. That's the three legs of the stool. If we do all of those in a responsible, bipartisan way, I think the American people would all be very, very happy.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayThreeTaxesFairsResponsibleLegsSpendingCodeVery HappyEntitlementBipartisanStoolsEquitableThree Legs Author:Claire McCaskill
“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.” ThinkingWellsRealityGrowthPresidentEconomyStudyCuttingEconomicTaxesRateRevenueEconomic GrowthPresident BushTax CutsPresident Kennedy Author:Mike Pence
“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.” PeopleThinkingWantCountryPresidentCuttingTaxesClimateBurdenTax Burden Author:Rick Perry
“I think you need to have a tax system that basically is flat, fair and simple. And - that you can put on a post card. I mean, even Timothy Geithner could do this one and get it on time.” ThinkingNeedsMeanSimpleTaxesFairsCardsPostsFlatsTax System Author:Rick Perry
“The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when they know that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt?'” PeopleThinkingKnowsMomentsKidsJobsSocialSecurityTaxesNeighborSeniorSocial SecurityGood JobMedicareMedicaidMedicare And Medicaid Author:Mitt Romney