Bruce Bartlett Quotes

My predecessor taxed wealthy, successful people at a higher rate than ever before. And what happened? They left. And what came of it? Did unemployment drop? No.

Taxes are important. President Bush's tax proposals leave no rich person behind. Voters approve of President Bush helping the kind of people they wish they were one of.

The real reason to oppose increasing tax rates on the wealthy is that it's a good bet they could do more to help the economy if they keep their money rather than have their earnings confiscated by the government and spent on another round of stimulus.

I do think there is room at the very top for marginal tax changes.

Marginal tax rates are the lowest they've been in generations, and all we can talk about is tax cuts.

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

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.

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? ... Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

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.

I do think there is room at the very top for marginal tax changes.

I do not think we should tax people to a point where they are looking for tax loopholes and getting their money out of the country.

President Obama wants to raise taxes on the country's richest people. And you thought Donald Trump hated him before.

An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits

So far rich people have been very quiet about the possibility of getting taxes raised on them, but that doesn't mean they won't get mad about it, it just means they don't know about it. Because it takes a while for bad news to reach a rich person. First their accountant has to tell the butler, who has to tell the servant, who wouldn't dare interrupt their game of croquet.

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.

Public unions are the country's foremost advocates for increased taxes at all levels of government.

In a way, Calvin Coolidge is better than Reagan. His tax rates were lower, and he cut budgets.

So I'm not proposing anything radical. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot. ... At the same time, most people agree that we should not raise taxes on middle-class families or small businesses -- not when so many folks are just trying to get by.

The United States has a huge budget deficit so taxes are going to have to go up and I certainly agree they should go up more on the rich than everyone else. That - that's just justice.

Regarding the Economy & Taxation: America's most successful achievers do pay a higher share of the total tax burden. The top one percent income earners paid 18 percent of the total tax burden in 1981, and paid 25 percent in 1991. The bottom 50 percent of income earners paid only 8 percent of the total tax burden, and paid only 5 percent in 1991. History shows that tax cuts have always resulted in improved economic growth producing more tax revenue in the treasury.

The only issue on taxes - Hillary Clinton is going to raise taxes, and Donald Trump and I are going to cut them.

It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.

The country doesn't owe you anything because you're an American or especially because you have a college degree. Now, if you think... If you are a college student and you've got a degree and you're out there and you can't find a job and if you think - if you agree with Obama that the Bush tax cuts ought to sunset - $700 billion ought to be taken out of the private sector and sent to Obama, then you deserve to be out of work for the rest of your life because that $700 billion taken out of the private sector could be used to grow businesses and hire people.

Hillary Clinton is raising your taxes and I'm lowering your taxes. That in itself is a big difference.

Who can dispute that the governments of the United States constitute the most voracious tax system in the history of mankind? In the year 2000, those governments succeeded in laying hands on more than $3 trillion - almost $11,000 each for the 275 million men, women, and children resident in the country. No other nation-state rakes in an amount even close to the U.S. total.