Michele Bachmann Quotes

The income tax is the most regressive tax imaginable, allowing government to take first claim on our lives. The income tax assumes government owns us, as individuals, and has a sovereign claim to the fruits of our labor.

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part.

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one.

Taxes are the lifeblood of Government

When a government finds itself in the calamitous circumstances where it … must tax its people heavily, it behooves it, so far as possible, to see that all those who are liable pay according to their means, and that a proper assessment is made of them. In this way, the middle class is not taxed in order to spare the rich, nor the poor so much more burdened that they no longer have any possibility of improving their condition. Labor is encouraged and industry not deterred. Trade remains free and restricted as little as possible, and so far as possible taxes are levied on objects which go beyond necessity, coming under the category of luxuries, and are therefore conditioned on the choice of the people .

A lot of people in the western world don't realize how much taxes limit their options. You can end up paying almost half your income in taxes, which basically means you're working for the government for 180 days a year. I think I can find better ways to use the money I make for the benefit of society.

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.

Let me tell you, that's what taxation is - it's confiscation. It's your money, it's not the government's money. But the government makes you think that it all comes from them.

Government, not the oil industry, is the biggest 'profiteer' from oil. And it uses the tax revenue to expand its own authority at the expense of the individual, as it does with an endless number of other industries - including electric power, coal, lumber, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, aircraft, and agriculture. The Statist's intrusion to the free market is boundless.

The Founding Fathers realized that "the power to tax is the power to destroy," which is why they did not give the Federal government the power to impose an income tax. Needless to say, the Founders would be horrified to know that Americans today give more than a third of their income to the Federal government.

It is America, I don't want the government trying to control more of my life. I want less government control, and I think there are too many government regulations, laws and taxes on the books.

The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it.

When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people's benefit. Trust them; leave them alone.

If the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes for you and me for? Why don't it make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us?

I've always considered the government taking one out of every two dollars I earn absolute tyranny.

Our economic freedom is founded on individual property rights; government should never be permitted to take those away.

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

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.

The true principle of taxation is the benefit principle - those who benefit from a government service should pay for it. It's also known as the 'user pay' principle. Every effort should be made to link the payment of taxes or fees to the cost associated with the government service.

Taxation is not charity. It is not voluntary. As we shrink the state and make government smaller, we will find that more and more people are able to take care of themselves.

If I make a dollar and out of every dollar I'm taxed at 50, half, at 50 cents, I have to give, isn't that like enough?

The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed.

The government has no business telling an individual what kind of light bulb to buy.

Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?

We believe it wrong ever to take a dollar from a free citizen without a very necessary public purpose, because each such taking diminishes the freedom to spend that dollar as its owner would prefer.