Joe J. Walsh Quotes

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Dozens of America's wealthiest taxpayers - including hedge fund legend Michael Steinhardt, super trial lawyer Guy Saperstein, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's fame - have appealed to President Obama not to renew the Bush tax cuts for anyone earning more than $1 million a year.

It's really a question of fairness and what kind of country we're going to live in. There are 22,000 people making over $1 million. They're paying an effective tax rate in the teens. As Warren Buffett said, he pays less in taxes effectively than his secretary does. That's not right.

Everyone wants the rich to pay more in taxes.

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.

Whoever is for higher taxes, feel free to pay higher taxes.

Governments, of course, can - and do - soak the rich.

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.

Since the lobbyists and lawyers for the rich are so good at these things, I think they can avoid any increased tax rate so I would have a minimum tax.

A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune.

I have paid over $10 billion in taxes. But the government should collect even more from people like me.

The wealthiest can afford to pay more in taxes. That's a part of the deal. That makes sense. I don't know anyone that doesn't agree with that.

There are big winners in Paul Ryan's 'Roadmap,' and you can guess who they are. He would cut taxes for the wealthy, completely eliminate the corporate income tax, and create a value added tax.

I think for some, the very wealthiest among us, for corporations, taxes are too low.

If we lower the payroll tax, will Americans let us raise it again? I don't think so.

There are a few things that we can do. One of them is that we can increase the taxes that people are paying who are the extremely wealthy in our communities. So, 70 percent, 80 percent, we've had it as high as 90 percent.

Mitt Romney is coming under fire because even though he is a multimillionaire, he only paid 15 percent in taxes. That's not a tax, that's barely a tip.

The U.S. is the country that invented progressive taxation of income and of inherited wealth in the 1910s and '20s.

Having won re-election convincingly and against the economic odds, President Obama quickly made good on his promise of maintaining taxes as they are for the middle class while raising them on the wealthiest Americans.

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?