Sarah Steelman Quotes
I am for lowering taxes.
Steelman, Sarah. "Issues." Sarah Steelman for U.S. Senate, 2012.
This is the most articulate historical statement of the modern conservative mantra regarding taxes. However, one change has taken place. The words “necessarily” and “often” tend to be left out of the more modern ideological statements. Mellon’s original statement has never really had any politicians or economists who disagreed. Politicians of all economic persuasions have generally accepted the Mellon statement but the extreme conservatives’ creed is that a lowering of taxes always produces more revenue and a tax increase will inevitably lead to greater tax revenue—a position which Mellon never took. Mellon however was very solicitous of the wealthy, felt the welfare of the nation depended on their prosperity, and was a strong advocate of what was later called ‘trickle down’ economics {628592}.
Sherman was a member of the House Finance Committee that would have to initiate any tax bill. Most of the Republicans of that time had signed a pledge to have no new taxes and that was interpreted as no closing of tax loopholes. So they blocked all attempts at closing tax loopholes when they controlled the house or had a filibuster minority of the Senate. However in the few years that they did not, the Democrats had “more important” legislation like health care reform that they wanted to use their majority position for. The result was no closure of tax loopholes—even the egregious ones that a majority of Congress wanted closed and almost all the people did. The particular Congress when Sherman made this statement was the worst Congress in American History in terms of the few laws that the polarized Congress could pass.
Sarah Steelman is an American Republican politician from Missouri and State Treasurer from 2005 to 2009. She is currently serving in the Office of Administration in Governor Mike Parson’s administration. She did not run for re-election as state treasurer in 2008, having run for Governor, and was succeeded in office by Democrat Clint Zweifel on January 12, 2009. She was listed in a 2008 article in the New York Times as among seventeen women who may someday run for President of the United States. On November 29, 2010, Steelman announced she would run for the U.S. Senate in 2012. She was defeated in the Republican primary by U.S. Representative Todd Akin.
