Barack Obama Quotes

The Clinton tax increase - which was an increase in taxes primarily on upper-income people - not only made the tax code more nearly progressive, it preceded one of the most productive economic periods in American life.

We demand a graduated income tax.

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.

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

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.

The data does not support that high-income tax cuts are the main drivers of growth, so I don't think that uncertainty over what the tax rate will be for someone that makes a million dollars a year has that big an impact on the economic growth rate in the country.

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.

Those who claim the economy will collapse if tax rates on the wealthy increase, do not know their history. In the Eisenhower Administration—and Eisenhower was hardly a left winger—the marginal tax rate was 91 percent. I am only suggesting that it go to 50 percent.

The most equitable way to substantially reduce the deficit is to delay reductions in the top tax bracket for upper-income taxpayers.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I have continuously said that, at the very minimum, the Bush tax cuts for income under $250,000 should be extended.

The only question where there is disagreement is should the highest income rates above a quarter million dollars a year go back to where they were under Bill Clinton. That is the dispute about the taxes.

Increased revenues, meaning higher taxes, will be a central element of any successful long-term budget plan, and President Obama is right to insist that the wealthy - the slice of America that has come through the recession in by far the best financial health - should provide those funds.

Tax rates should never be raised in some brackets without being raised in all brackets.

Well, the taxes that everyone else is paying are supporting lots of programs that were in place prior to Obama's new spending. So new spending has too be paid for by new taxes, or by eliminating existing tax breaks. And Obama wants that burden to be borne exclusively by the rich.

A properly designed tax system can strike a balance between helping the poor and, at the same time, giving people the incentive to work.

I think the rich should pay more in taxes - I agree with that 100 percent - but everybody should feel the pain a little bit.

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

I don't believe, the president doesn't believe, that the high income tax cuts work, period. I don't think the evidence supports that.

The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.

Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues.