A Quote by Paul Ryan

Conventional wisdom on government's role in inequality often has it backwards. Tax reforms have resulted in a more progressive federal income tax; government transfer payments have become less progressive.

Paul Ryan

Quote Topics

Backwards Become Conventional Conventional Wisdom Federal Government Income Income Tax Inequality Less More Often Payments Progressive Reforms Role Tax Tax Reform Transfer Wisdom

Quote Author

Paul Ryan
American - Politician
Born: January 29, 1970

In 1848, Karl Marx said, a progressive income tax is needed to transfer wealth and power to the state. Thus, Marx's Communist Manifesto had as its major economic tenet a progressive income tax. ... I say it is time to replace the progressive income tax with a national retail sales tax, and it is time to abolish the IRS.

James Traficant

Mr. Speaker, in 1848, Karl Marx said, a progressive income tax is needed to transfer wealth and power to the state. Thus, Marx's Communist Manifesto had as its major economic tenet a progressive income tax. Think about it, 1848 Karl Marx, Communism.... I say it is time to replace the progressive income tax with a national retail sales tax, and it is time to abolish the IRS, my colleagues. I yield back all the rules, regulations, fear, and intimidation of our current system.

James Traficant

The United States needs a much more progressive tax-and-transfer infrastructure, given how dramatically inequality has increased. But not every single policy needs to be ideally progressive to achieve that goal.

Annie Lowrey

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.

Ron Paul

What you do by having an income tax rate reduction across the board, you really provide great incentives for people to work, produce, and increase output. So I would support a carbon tax in replacement for a progressive income tax.

Arthur Laffer

There are 11 states in the United States that in the last 50 years instituted an income tax. So I looked at each of those 11 states over the last 50 years, and I took their current economic metrics and their metrics for the five years before they put in the progressive income tax... Every single state that introduced a progressive income tax has declined as an overall share of the U.S. economy.

Arthur Laffer

A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget....As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.

John F. Kennedy

The tax that was supposed to soak the rich has instead soaked America. The beneficiary of the income tax has not been the poor, but big government. The income tax has given us a government bureaucracy that outnumbers the manufacturing work force. It has created welfare dependencies that have entrapped millions of Americans in an underclass that is forced to live a sordid existence of trading votes for government handouts.

Paul Craig Roberts

Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure.

Robert J. Shiller

I support both a Fair Tax and a Flat Tax plan that would dramatically streamline the tax system. A Fair Tax would replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a single national tax on retail sales, while a Flat Tax would apply the same tax rate to all income with few if any deductions or exemptions.

Ralph Hall

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.

Barney Frank

Let's abolish the IRS, let's eliminate income tax, let's eliminate corporate tax, let's balance the federal budget, and if we need a tax, it can be one federal consumption tax.

Gary Johnson

I would favor three policies: raising the minimum wage to $12, closing the tax loophole where persons only pay a 15% income tax on long term capital gains (tax it at the full tax rate), and institute a progressive tax moving the highest tax rate from 39.6% to 45%. I would favor implementing these three policies in that order, starting with raising the minimum wage, but not stopping there.

Philip Kotler

A majority of Americans support Social Security and Medicare, a progressive tax system and a government that regulates business in the public interest, but most share deep skepticism about the government's ability to do all this well.

Adam Davidson

The federal government is often said in militia circles to have made wholesale seizures of power, at times by subterfuge. A leading grievance holds that the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the federal income tax, was ratified through fraud.

Barton Gellman

I believe in a progressive tax structure that fairly distributes the costs of government in a way that those of us fortunate to have more, carry more of the burden.

Brad Schneider

A Quote by Paul Ryan

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors