Oliver Perry Morton Quotes
I should be very willing to exchange with New York and agree that we will take her income and pay her taxes …. They have to pay the larger share of the income tax simply because the large incomes are there.
An income tax had been instituted during the Civil War but had lapsed. Existing taxes were therefore all excise or head taxes—very regressive. Some politicians began floating the idea of bringing back the Income Tax. But the New York Congressmen objected on the grounds that New York would pay a much higher proportion of the taxes, then their population represented. Under the Civil War, income tax, New York State had paid one/third of the entire national tax burden.
Oliver Perry Morton, 1823-1877, U. S. Senator (Republican, IN), Governor of Indiana, Senate Debate on the Income Tax, 1872
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The George W. Bush administration when they had a Republican-controlled Congress, had amended the tax laws to treat the earnings of the hedge fund managers differently from people who manage other enterprises in the nation. They gave a group of very wealthy managers whose earnings were already amongst the highest of any managers in the country a huge tax break, while little public attention was paid to the subtlety of complex tax laws. Daschle and others began to draw public attention to the inequity.
He turned out to be very wrong as there were a number of times in American history when there were tax rates in excess of 70 percent, and they were collected.
Describing the concept of an income tax:
This became known as the Buffet Principle—that the very rich should not pay a lower tax rate than the workers who make far less money than they do. President Barack Obama used this principle by name in calling for the 2011 Jobs Act which would eliminate some of the loopholes and exemptions by which the rich could avoid some or much or their tax obligation.
At the time, he, th richest man in America was paying a lower ta rate than his secretary, his employees and the waiter who served him lunch. The “Buffet Rule” was developed and named for him that said that wealthy people should pay a minimum rate of taxation regardless of tax credits, deductions and other means of tax avoidance.
This was a typical argument in the 2012 battle between President Obama and the Republican conservatives. However, this was written 35 years earlier, when the exact same issue was polarizing politicians. The idea for taxing the rich more to reduce the deficit has been around since there was a Federal deficit. On most occasions the rich had enough political clout to avoid additional taxes for them and get the general public to pay instead of them. However, there have been times where they have not been able to avoid increased taxes. The New Deal lead by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Obama administration in 2013 were two such exceptions.
Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton, commonly known as Oliver P. Morton, was a U.S. Republican Party politician from Indiana. He served as the 14th Governor (the first native-born) of Indiana during the American Civil War, and was a stalwart ally of President Abraham Lincoln. During the war, Morton thwarted and neutralized the Democratic-controlled Indiana General Assembly. He exceeded his constitutional authority by calling out the militia without approval, and during the period of legislative suppression he privately financed the state government through unapproved federal and private loans. He was criticized for arresting and detaining political enemies and suspected southern sympathizers. As one of President Lincoln's "war governors", Morton made significant contributions to the war effort, more than any other man in the state, and earned the lifelong gratitude of former Union soldiers for his support.
