Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

You know what isn't class warfare? Progressive taxation, as in, say, expecting billionaires to pay at least as much in taxes as their secretaries. Ideally, in fact, they should pay more.

We demand a graduated income tax.

… [state] taxation should be in proportion to wealth …

There's nothing wrong with paying taxes; they should be paid in proportion to how rich you are. This idea that you're going to get better growth by cutting taxes at the top has no historical justification. And it's certainly not an argument in favor of capitalism.

People making $1 million a year are not going to do anything different if they pay more taxes.

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

One way to have broader access to wealth is to reduce the tax on the large group and increase the tax on the very top so concentration of wealth doesn't get to extreme levels.

Distribute taxes among all in a fair and equitable manner and make them general, not exempting anyone because of his noble rank or great riches, nor even exempting your own officials or courtiers or followers. Do not levy on anyone a tax which is beyond his capacity to pay…

Very high taxes on the very rich—that was invented in the United States.

I do not believe that the top rate should be lowered for individuals who are making more than $1 million a year. I don't think there's any need to eliminate the estate tax.

You can raise taxes on the rich in America! We should raise taxes on the rich in America. But we can't do that in Rhode Island.

Putting, say, an 85 per cent income tax rate is unlikely to bring in much revenue.

My view is that taxation ought to be based upon ability to pay.

Income tax in particular in the United States is concentrated on the top half of the income distribution, and very heavily skewed towards the top 10 or even top 1 percent.

The way to connect with voters on the plan is to simply give the facts. Fifty per cent of taxpayers pay 97 per cent of the taxes. By most people's standards, that's already fair. The President is playing the class warfare card because he knows that a lot of people may never hear that particular fact. But it's a fact.

People like me, whose income largely comes from dividends, should pay more taxes.

American businesses and upper incomes pay a larger portion of the federal taxes of our national taxes than any country in the world.

While the wealthiest families completely benefit from the tax cuts targeted towards the upper brackets, middle-income families were hit with the unwelcome surprise of higher taxes on tax day.

Friends, I'm angry about what's happening in politics today! Why is it wrong to ask the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations to pay their fair share?

If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it.

When President Obama speaks about raising taxes on the rich, he speaks about high-income employees and small business owners, not entrepreneurs who build big businesses.

We are all are equal, but some pay higher tax rates than others.

I just think that - when a country needs more income and we do, we're only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that - that - when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.

I think the latest estimates were that we have about 250,000 millionaires and billionaires. President Obama wants to increase their taxes 13 percent.

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.