George H. W. Bush Quotes

GOP candidates routinely sign a pledge never, ever to raise taxes. Democratic candidates aren't even asked to sign a parallel pledge never, ever to cut entitlements.

I have never voted for a tax increase.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

A libertarian presidential candidate isn't going to win anyway, so he can afford to say that all taxation is theft, and it isn't the job of a libertarian presidential candidate to cook up new ways to commit theft.

You don't raise taxes in times of such uncertainty.

It is my absolute intent to hold the line on taxes.

The move to tax Internet sales, clothed as a 'fairness' issue, is the typical 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' ploy so often used by governments unwilling to cut expenditures to match revenues. It matters not whether its proponents have a 'D' or an 'R' after their name. It is a tax increase in either case.

I've made a promise that taxes would be my last resort on issues.

'Tax' is a bad word for politicians.

Hillary Clinton is raising your taxes, folks. You can look at me. She's raising your taxes really high. And what that's going to do is a disaster for the country.

Americans tend not to be too enthusiastic about having their taxes raised again....But if the American people aren't going to accept it, if the politicians don't have the courage to raise taxes, what are we facing down the road?

The message coming out of Washington, especially from our leftist politicians and the news media, is that we solve our budget problems by raising taxes on the rich. If Americans were more informed, such a message would be insulting to our intelligence. There are not enough rich people to satisfy Congress' appetite.

I will veto any tax increase.

Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.

What we've been hearing over and over again is that the reason Republicans are opposed to the surtax is because of the concern of its impact on job creation. Well, if you carve out employers, you take away that argument.

When we were at peace, Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Now there's a war, so Democrats want to raise taxes. When there was a surplus, Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Now that there is a mild recession, Democrats want to raise taxes.

I'm for tax reform, not tax increases.

We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect.

Stupider than France is not where we want to be on tax policy.

People question me all the time about my experience. They question my experience in politics, and the first thing I always tell them is yes, I have no experience raising taxes over and over. I have no experience increasing the debt in a state.

You don't get an economy growing by raising taxes.

As a matter of policy, increasing taxes on the most economically productive group, which already generates 60 percent of the nation's federal revenues, during a sustained period of economic doldrums is a wretched idea.

Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?

The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.

Americans don't think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.