Taxpayers Quotes

Those who willfully conceal assets overseas undermine the playing field for all taxpayers. ~ Loretta Lynch

Taxpayers will not stand for - nor should they - the funding of poster sites, leaflets or advertising. What people will support is funding for political education, for training, for party organization. ~ Peter Hain

And that's what separates the professionals from the taxpayers ~ Jason Kidd

An aircraft which is used by wealthy people on their expense accounts, whose fares are subsidized by much poorer taxpayers. ~ Denis Healey

To win elections, politicians have promised practically endless government spending and covered up the cost, leaving generations of taxpayers obligated to pay off the debt. That's wrong, but neither the U.S. nor Europe has a plan to stop it. ~ David Malpass

We've got the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble when it comes to crime in this country. The FBI says burglary and robbery cost U.S. taxpayers $3.8 billion annually. Securities fraud alone costs four times that. And securities fraud is nothing to the cost of oil spills, price-fixing, and dangerous or defective products. Fraud by health-care corporations alone costs us between $100 billion and $400 billion a year. No three-strikes-and-you're-out for these guys. Remember the S&L scandal? $500 billion. ~ Molly Ivins

The federal government should only be providing services for emergencies. You and I, taxpayers, shouldn't be paying for cell phones so someone can have a social life. I just don't think it's appropriate. ~ Timothy Griffin

The last thing I would want is for Monbiot, Mann, Flannery, Jones, Hansen and the rest of the Climate rogues' gallery to be granted the mercy of quick release. Publicly humiliated? Yes please. Having all their crappy books remaindered? Definitely. Dragged away from their taxpayer funded troughs and their cushy sinecures, to be replaced by people who actually know what they're talking about? For sure. But hanging? Hell no. Hanging is far too good for such ineffable toerags. ~ James Delingpole

We know that they cannot bear their share of the taxes to help pay for their education. And unless those children get a good education we know that they become dropouts and they become delinquents and they become taxeaters instead of taxpayers. We know that they will join the unemployed. That is why we put top priority on breaking the vicious cycle that today threatens the future of 5 million children in this great land of opportunity which we talk about so much. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

However, even a strong government can't perform miracles. It needs money from the taxpayers. ~ George Soros

I think it would be interesting to know about the Federal Reserve. I think we should audit the Federal Reserve. It's taxpayers money that is being used there ~ Harry Reid

You can't take money from the taxpayers out of the treasury to give it to pay off your political donors. That's corruption to do that. ~ Michele Bachmann

The trouble is that privacy is at once essential to, and in tension with, both freedom and security. A cabinet minister who keeps his mistress in satin sheets at the French taxpayer's expense cannot justly object when the press exposes his misuse of public funds. Our freedom to scrutinise the conduct of public figures trumps that minister's claim to privacy. The question is: where and how do we draw the line between a genuine public interest and that which is merely what interests the public? ~ Timothy Garton Ash

Public education is a great instrument of social change. Through it, if we so desire, we can make our country more nearly a democracy without classes. To do so will require the efforts of us all-teachers, administrators, taxpayers and statesmen. Education is a social process, perhaps the most important process in determining the future of our country; it should command a far larger portion of our national income than it does today. ~ James Bryant Conant

The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Most illegals are without health insurance, and when these workers need emergency healthcare, the American taxpayer gets stuck with the bill. ~ Spencer Bachus

Our loyalty lies with little taxpayers, not big spenders. What our critics really believe is that those in Washington know better how to spend your money than you, the people, do. But we're not going to let them do it, period. ~ Ronald Reagan

As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions. ~ Stephen Harper

In the last month of the presidential campaign, I tuned in to conservative talk radio and listened as callers considered the unthinkable. One after another, they all threatened the same thing: "If McCain doesn't win, I'm leaving the country." "Oh, right," I'd say. "You're going to leave and go where? Right-wing Europe?" In the Netherlands now, I imagine it's legal to marry your own children. Get them pregnant, and you can abort your unborn grandbabies in a free clinic that used to be a church. The doctor might be a woman who became a man and then became a woman again, all on taxpayers' dollars, but as long as she saves the stem cells, she'll have the nation's blessing. ~ David Sedaris

The 11 million, I think, are never going home, don't need to be sent home, and I would incorporate them into our society by giving them work visas and making them taxpayers. ~ Rand Paul

So if we are really concerned about generating more taxes, we ought to be investing in our people, not taking away the kinds of resources that contribute to their ability to become greater taxpayers in this country. ~ Patrick J. Kennedy

From my very first day in the Mayor's office, I have worked closely with the Council members who share our vision of a city hall that really protects taxpayers and cares ... yes ... about the little things that make a big difference in people's lives. ~ Laura Miller

The vast majority of the American people are hard-working taxpayers who take responsibility for their families, go to work every day, they pay their mortgage on time, they volunteer in their community. ~ Marco Rubio

However accurate or inaccurate the agency's numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right
and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong
in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties. ~ James Bovard

[T]ax cuts are not just something that all taxpayers deserve, but also the best way to curb government spending. It is the best kind of tax reform. If the money never reaches the table, Congress can't gobble it up. ~ Zell Miller

It's really important, obviously, for people to realize that it is a very small percentage, only 1 percent of our total economy, of our total budget, and I think that's important for people to know. But I also know that Americans are very generous and that many, many Americans are proud that their taxpayer dollar has saved lives in Africa through the president's malaria initiative or through PEPFAR, the emergency relief plan for AIDS. ~ Laura Bush

In giving protection instead of liberty to the industries for defense, the government has contracted to make them profitable; and if they become a burden to the taxpayers, whose fault is it? Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution in France? ~ Frederic Bastiat

The war has ended with every one owing every one else immense sums of money. Germany owes a large sum to the Allies, the Allies owe a large sum to Great Britain, and Great Britain owes a large sum to the United States. The holders of war loan in every country are owed a large sum by the States, and the States in its turn is owed a large sum by these and other taxpayers. The whole position is in the highest degree artificial, misleading, and vexatious. We shall never be able to move again, unless we can free our limbs from these paper shackles. ~ John Maynard Keynes

More than 80 per cent of the British casualties of the Great War were English. More than 80 per cent of the taxation is paid by the English taxpayers. We are entitled to mention these facts, and to draw authority and courage from them. ~ Winston Churchill

I've said we need to look at things from the perspective of working people and taxpayers, not from the perspective of government and government officials. ~ Scott McCallum

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question. ~ Stephen Harper

Who is the forgotten man...? I know him as intimately as my own undershirt. He is the fellow that is trying to get along without public relief... In the meantime the taxpayers go on supporting many that would not work if they had jobs. ~ Amity Shlaes

Some taxpayers may object to a print journalism bailout on the grounds that it mostly benefits the liberal elite. And we can't blame taxpayers for being reluctant to subsidize the reportorial careers of J-school twerps who should have joined the Peace Corps and gone to Africa to 'speak truth to power' to Robert Mugabe. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

President Obama has shown he has the vision to support average consumers and taxpayers. ~ Austin Ligon

The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. ~ Abraham Lincoln

What I want to do is create more taxpayers, not more taxes. ~ Geoff Davis

For every dollar that is spent on the (boondoggle) bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers. If the bridge costs $1,000,000 the taxpayers will lose $1,000, 000. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most. ~ Henry Hazlitt

Common sense tells us that we should focus our resources to benefit children, teachers and taxpayers by keeping dollars in the classroom. ~ Bob Beauprez

Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby, the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars. Taxpayers will be on the hook for spending that will stimulate the debt, stimulate the growth of government, but will do little to stimulate jobs or the economy. ~ Christopher Bond

As Americans, we realize that there is no taxpayer money that wasn't first earned through the sweat and toil of one of our citizens. ~ Rick Perry

Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure ... The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. ~ Walter E. Williams

Right now the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay almost 96 percent of the taxes. The top income earners--the evil top 1 percent--earn about 16.5 percent of the income and pay almost 33.7 percent of the income taxes. This is what Democrats call "not paying your fair share. ~ Neal Boortz

It is your tax which pays for public spending. The government have no money of their own. There is only taxpayers' money. ~ Margaret Thatcher

If taxpayers want better results from Congress, they must stop paying their elected officials for failure. After all, you get what you pay for. ~ Jim Cooper

General revenue - what taxpayers are willing to give government, what they think is fair to give government - is not going to grow at the same amount that the federal government basically forces us to spend on Medicaid. ~ Rick Scott

The United States invented the Internet and it has been our gift to the world, paid for by our taxpayers. The U.N.'s desire to take that gift as a means of increasing its power must be stopped. ~ John Doolittle

In politics, throwing the taxpayers' money at disasters is supposed to show your compassion. But robbing Peter to pay Paul is not compassion. It is politics. ~ Thomas Sowell

Subsidies for the oil, gas and coal industries are projected to cost taxpayers more than $135 billion in the coming decade. At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies' already enormous profits. ~ Bernie Sanders

In order for us to use the very best judgment possible in spending the taxpayer's money intelligently, we just have to do a certain amount of this research and development work ourselves. We just have to keep our own hands dirty to command the professional respect of the contractor personnel engaged with actual design, shop and testing work. ~ Wernher Von Braun

We will lower the tax burden on middle class Americans by asking the very wealthy to pay their fair share. Middle class taxpayers will have a choice between a children's tax credit or a significant reduction in their income tax rate. ~ William J. Clinton

I recognize that as governor, my job is to sit on the other side of the table from the public sector unions and negotiate effectively on behalf of all the taxpayers of the state, including all of you. ~ Rob McKenna

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried. ~ Marco Rubio

If we do not resolve the euro crisis, we will all pay the price. And if we do resolve it, we will all benefit, particularly German taxpayers and savers. ~ Mario Draghi

Until we can fully grasp the extent of corruption and fraud involved in the administration of the Oil-for-Food program, and until the United Nations decides to cooperate in the investigation, no American taxpayer dollars should go to the United Nations. ~ John Ensign

As these debts become due, rich creditors will be pitted against poor debtors; private-sector taxpayers against public-sector workers, young workers against the retired, domestic voters against foreign bondholders. It is impossible to forecast who will win each of these battles but one thing seems certain: not all these debts will be paid in full. ~ Philip Coggan

I think we would look at other possibilities that would deliver further passenger capacity, that would deliver further infrastructure to the north of England but would be better value for taxpayers. ~ Andrea Leadsom

He has a very extensive public relations apparatus that is paid for by the taxpayers of this state. They are some of the best in the business. and he is a master at getting not only television but other media exposure on the basis of confrontation and chaos. ~ Bill Scott

But the fact is, it's illegal for the Administration to spend North west taxpayers' money to develop this rate hike proposal, just so it can turn around and raise their energy rates. ~ Maria Cantwell

CCA finds ways to minimize its obligation to provide adequate health care. At the out-of-state prisons where California ships some of its inmates, CCA will not accept any prisoners who are over sixty-five years old, have mental health issues, or serious conditions like HIV. The company's Idaho prison contract specified that the 'primary criteria' for screening incoming offenders was 'no chronic mental health or health care issues.' The contracts of some CCA prisons in Tennessee and Hawaii stipulate that the states will bear the cost of HIV treatment. Such exemptions allow CCA to tout its cost efficiency while taxpayers assume the medical expenses for the inmates the company won't take or treat. ~ Shane Bauer

All communities have a right to clean water. The taxpayers of Pueblo should not have to carry the burden of the clean up cost simply because they live downstream. ~ John Salazar

Unlike Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, I never voted to provide taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood. ~ Ron Paul

The American taxpayers should not have to send one more penny on the Administration's Iraq misadventure. Let's give our troops the supplies they need to get out of Iraq safely. Let's bring our troops home. ~ John Conyers

Indiana taxpayers, retired Hoosier state policemen and teachers are neither greedy speculators nor unpatriotic. They are, however, secured creditors of Chrysler. They deserve to have their funds protected under the full auspices of the law. ~ Richard Mourdock

Taxpayers should not be coerced into giving up their privacy rights just to file their taxes. ~ Melissa Bean

The risk was spread across the globe from American state pension funds to public health networks in Australia and even to town councils beyond the Arctic Circle. In Norway, for example, the municipalities of Rana, Hemnes, Hattjelldal and Narvik invested some $120 million of their taxpayers' money in CDOs secured on American subprime mortgages. ~ Niall Ferguson

They had studied law, information technology and art history as part of their beauty treatment, they had let Norwegian taxpayers finance years at university just so that they could end up as overqualified, stay-at-home playthings and sit here exchanging confidences about how to keep their sugar daddies suitably happy, suitably jealous and suitably on their toes. ~ Jo Nesbo

To stabilize the nation's public-employee pension systems and to prevent federal taxpayers from being billed for failed pension funds, I have introduced the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act in Congress. ~ Devin Nunes

Congress has a responsibility to review research paid for by hard-working American taxpayers. ~ Lamar S. Smith

People who are government servants, public servants, should not be paid more than the taxpayers who are paying for it. ~ Mitt Romney

Democrats don't represent the taxpayers, they represent the tax-consumers ... ~ Glenn Reynolds

We need to focus on getting people back to work, focus on jobs, the economy, the debt and the spending. That's what will improve the quality of life for American families and for hard-working taxpayers. ~ John Barrasso

Several unions have agreed to larger employee contributions for their members. Taxpayers are living with cuts and making sacrifices to deal with the reality of California's budget crisis, state workers are going to have to do the same. ~ Jerry Brown

We're not going to spend taxpayers' money on abortion. This is an issue that divides America. But certainly reasonable people can agree on how to reduce abortions in America. ~ George W. Bush

As a taxpayer, you are required to be fully in compliance with the United States Tax Code, which is currently the size and weight of the Budweiser Clydesdales. ~ Dave Barry

Expensive illogicalities and inefficiencies do not worry the monsters of American bureaucracy, and the taxpayers are enthusiastic and eager to spend fortunes in the name of fighting crime. Prison places cost the US taxpayer more than university places. The American belief that prisons are the best way to combat crime has led to an incarceration rate that is at least five times that of almost any industrialised nation. Overcrowding is endemic. Conditions are appalling, varying from windowless, sensory-deprived isolation to barren futile brutality. ~ Howard Marks

That's why you never hear politicians talking about 'citizens,' it's all 'taxpayers,' as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay. Like the state was a business and citizenship was a loyalty program that rewarded you for your custom with roads and health care. Zottas cooked the process so they get all the money and own the political process, pay as much or as little tax as they want. Sure, they pay most of the tax, because they've built a set of rules that gives them most of the money. Talking about 'taxpayers' means that the state's debt is to rich dudes, and anything it gives to kids or old people or sick people or disabled people is charity we should be grateful for, since none of those people are paying tax that justifies their rewards from Government Inc. ~ Cory Doctorow

Our crimes, for which we are responsible: as taxpayers, for failing to provide massive reparations, for granting refuge and immunity to the perpetrators, and for allowing the terrible facts to be sunk deep in the memory hole. All of this is of great significance, as it has been in the past. ~ Noam Chomsky

By the standards of honest, if unorthodox, accounting, government workers don't pay taxes, but are paid out of taxes. In other words, they pay taxes out of money confiscated from taxpayers, who, in turn, pay taxes twice: on their own income and on the income of members of the bureaucracy. At the very least, this should disqualify state workers from voting. ~ Ilana Mercer

So let me be clear, Collective bargaining isn't a right, it is an expensive entitlement. Once and for all, we are giving the taxpayers a voice in this debate. We put the power back in the hands of the people. ~ Scott Walker

The Georgia Constitution states it clearly: "The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia." Note the term "public education." Taxpayers are not obligated to provide a private education but a public education. If you want a private education, you may certainly go get one. But the taxpayers of Georgia are under no obligation to pay for it. ~ Anonymous

Finally, Obama's remarks are carefully constructed to undermine the arguments of conservatives, who frame the social programs funded by taxation as government handouts to the undeserving. Obama flips the taxes-as-handouts frame on its head, to yield a frame in which tax breaks are handouts to the rich, and the estate tax is a transfer of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to wealthy individuals - a frame that tells a vital truth. It ~ George Lakoff

The status quo is unacceptable, and it is costly. Whatever money the province may feel it is losing with revenue sharing will be more than paid off by the revitalization and empowerment of Aboriginal communities. To put matters of dignity in blunt economic terms: healthier communities cost less to taxpayers. ~ Bob Rae

I had to go on TV with the president of the Catholic League, which is not an official organization at all, just a lot of Catholics, or maybe it's just this guy. He demanded to de-fund art completely and argued that taxpayers should not pay for it. I said people who represent the Catholic Church shouldn't talk about taxes. ~ Fran Lebowitz

We own the Federal Reserve. There is this misconception that the Federal Reserve is some private entity. But if I might give an analogy here, we - U.S. taxpayers - own all the stock in the Federal Reserve. ~ Gary Johnson

We can't constantly explain to our voters that taxpayers have to be on the hook for certain risks, rather than those who make a lot of money taking those risks. ~ Angela Merkel

The people are going to speak. I'm not going to have people who say, 'You can't do this, you can't do that'. I'm going to fight for the taxpayers like I always have. ~ Rob Ford

But men in their role of taxpayers will be subsidizing themselves in their role of consumers. It becomes a little difficult to trace in this maze precisely who is subsidizing whom. What is forgotten is that subsidies are paid for by someone, and that no method has been discovered by which the community gets something for nothing. ~ Henry Hazlitt

I went back to work right away [after prison]. I was very lucky - a friend of mine created a job for me at his company. Most prisoners who come home face really significant challenges when it comes to finding work. It's very, very hard for most people who have a criminal record to get a job. I think the system is very wasteful of taxpayers' dollars. It's also very wasteful of human potential. I found that most people whom I was locked up with were, you know, good people who have skills and value. Prison is a missed opportunity to nurture those things. ~ Piper Kerman

Republican or Democrat, this nation's affluent urban and suburban classes understand their bread is buttered on the corporate side. The primary difference between the two parties is that the Republicans pretty much admit that they grasp and even endorse some of the nastiest facts of life in America. Republicans honestly tell the world: "Listen in on my phone calls, piss-test me until I'm blind, kill and eat all of my neighbors right in front of my eyes, but show me the money! Let me escape with every cent I can kick out of the suckers, the taxpayers, and anybody else I can get a headlock on, legally or otherwise." Democrats, in contrast, seem content to catalog the GOP's outrages against the Republic, showing proper indignation while laughing at episodes of The Daily Show. But they stand behind the American brand: imperialism. They "support our troops," though you will be hard put to find any of them who have served alongside them or who would send one of their own kids off to lose an eye or an arm in Iraq. They play the imperial game, maintain their credit ratings, and plan to keep the beach house and the retirement investments if it means sacrificing every damned Lynndie England in West Virginia. ~ Joe Bageant

Part of America's greatness is its willingness to care for those who are truly in need. But those who defraud the system take money and resources away not only from American taxpayers but also from those who truly need help. ~ Gary Bauer

When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket. ~ Thomas Sowell

It is very difficult to spend "federal (the taxpayers') dollars" so that the intended result is achieved. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access by their contribution to reducing the media's costs of acquiring the raw materials of, and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become "routine" news sources have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers. It should also be noted that in the case of the largesse of the Pentagon and the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, the subsidy is at the taxpayers' expense, so that, in effect, the citizenry pays to be propagandized in the interest of powerful groups such as military contractors and other sponsors of state terrorism. ~ Noam Chomsky

Imagine how a Teddy Kennedy or a Bill Clinton would take the news that one woman in ten, say, has the power to resist his blandishments by deadly force, and you'll get a perfect idea of how a Charles Schumer or a George Bush feels about armed taxpayers. ~ L. Neil Smith

We are going to put an end to the notion that the American taxpayer exists to fund the Federal Government. ~ Ronald Reagan

Can I say that I think it should be against the law for one state to use taxpayer money to try to bribe businesses in another state to move? Which then causes the target state to use taxpayer dollars to try to bribe the businesses to stay. ~ Gail Collins

But recently it seems that each time I vote, I am being asked to compromise my conservative ideals and my commitment to the American taxpayer simply for the benefit of political gain. ~ Jeff Miller

There's a lot of people out now around America who depend on checks from their fellow taxpayers being in the mailbox every day. ~ Gary Bauer

I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it's business as usual. I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars. ~ Elizabeth Warren

What I'd do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers' money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine, which is what they did. I wouldn't try to force the people of Ukraine into a deal with NATO against their interest or into a deal with the European Union, which is against their economic interest. ~ Dennis Kucinich