Some quotable quotes for Budget Day

Another Budget Day, another advance auction of stolen goods. Here, specially for Budget Day, some thoughts and quotes on the nature of taxation:

"To steal from one person is theft. To steal from many is taxation." - Jeff Daiell

"I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum." - former Massachusetts Governor William Weld

"See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of Taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs." - Dave Barry

“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” - Jean Baptiste Colbert

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." – Alexis De Tocqueville

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. - Bertrand de Jouvenel

'We shall tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.' - 'New Deal' luminary Harry Hopkins

"Most of the presidential candidates' economic packages involve 'tax breaks,' which is when the government, amid great fanfare, generously decides not to take quite so much of your income. In other words, these candidates are trying to buy your votes with your own money." - Dave Barry

“Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.” - Terry Pratchett

“For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It's sad to realise that most citizens do not even notice the irony of being bribed with their own money." - Anon.

"[There are dangers in] the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts." - Winston Churchill

"When Barbary Pirates demand a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'tribute money.' When the Mafia demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'the protection racket.' When the state demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called "sales tax." - Jeff Daiell

"Taxation is far greater an evil than theft. It is a form of slavery. If you cannot choose the disposition of your property, you are a slave. If you must ask permission to work, and/or pay involuntary tribute to anyone from your wages, you are a slave. If you are not allowed to dispose of your life (another way of defining money, since it represents portions of your time and effort, which is what your life is composed of) in the time, manner and amount of your choosing, you are a slave." - Libertarian writer Rick Tompkins

"The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave." - Ayn Rand

“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle” - Winston Churchill

"Taxation without representation is tyranny." - James Otis

"Taxation WITH representation ain't so hot either." - Gerald Barzan

"Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation." - Fletcher Knebel

"When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before." - HL Mencken

"What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin." - Mark Twain

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." - Ronald Reagan

"Death and taxes are inevitable; at least death doesn't get worse every year." - Unknown

"When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government." - former US President Grover Cleveland

"Rulers do not reduce taxes to be kind. Expediency and greed create high taxation, and normally it takes an impending catastrophe to bring it down." - Charles Adams

"The mounting burden of taxation not only undermines individual incentives to increased work and earnings, but in a score of ways discourages capital accumulation and distorts, unbalances, and shrinks production. Total real wealth and income is made smaller than it would otherwise be. On net balance there is more poverty rather than less." - Henry Hazlitt

"The poor of the world cannot be made rich by redistribution of wealth. Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to people who have failed to escape." - PJ O'Rourke

"A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw

"Freedom is the quality of being free from the control of regulators and tax collectors. If I want to be free their control, I must not impose controls on others." - Hans F. Sennholz

"There's only one way to kill capitalism--by taxes, taxes, and more taxes." - Karl Marx

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." - Vladimir Lenin

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - PJ O'Rourke

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." - Bertrand de Jouvenel

"The power to tax involves the power to destroy." - former US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall

"Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed." - Robert Heinlein

"Taxes are the sinews of the state." - Cicero

"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors, and miss." - Robert Heinlein

TAGS: Budget_&_Taxation, Quotes