Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2023-04-26 Apr 26, 2023The history of the welfare state is the history of public enterprise pushing out private organization. The impact was largely unintentional, but natural and inevitable. Higher taxes left individuals with less money to give; government’s assumption of responsibility for providing welfare shriveled the perceived duty of individuals to respond to their neighbors’ needs; and the availability of public programs gave recipients an alternative to private assistance, one which did not challenge recipients to reform their destructive behavior.~ Doug BandowAt first it was the incomes of corporations, then of rich citizens, then of well-provided widows and opulent workers, and finally the wealth of housemaids and the tips of waitresses. This is all in line with the ability to pay doctrine. The poor, simply because there are more of them, have more ability to pay than the rich.~ Frank ChodorovNo man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.~ Frederick Douglass Apr 25, 2023The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it.~ Harry BrowneHowever accurate or inaccurate the agency’s numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right -- and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong -- in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties.~ James BovardThe politicians don’t just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless.~ James Dale Davidson Apr 24, 2023It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.~ Frederic BastiatThe Act of Congress which we are impugning before you is communistic in its purposes and tendencies, and is defended here upon principles as communistic, socialistic - what shall I call them - populistic as ever have been addressed to any political assembly in the world.~ Joseph H. ChoateUnnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.~ Thomas Hobbes Apr 21, 2023The best way to understand this whole issue is to look at what the government does: it takes money from some people, keeps a bunch of it, and gives the rest to other people.~ Dave BarryPower always corrupts, and the power of government to tell people how to live their lives or to transfer money from those who earn it to others is always a temptation to corruption. Taxes and regulations reduce people’s incentive to produce wealth, and government transfer programs reduce people’s incentive to work, to save, and to help family and friends in case of sickness, disability, or retirement. ...[I]t is nonetheless clear that government enterprises are less efficient, less innovative, and more wasteful than private firms.... [C]ompare what it’s like to call American Express versus the IRS to correct problems. Or compare a private apartment building with public housing.~ David BoazThere ain't no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all.~ Davy Crockett Apr 20, 2023I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs'. That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him.~ T. Coleman AndrewsTo tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection, it is plunder.~ Benjamin DisraeliCollecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.~ Calvin Coolidge Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print