We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail
One important reason we have a Defense Department is that when we give it money, it spends it, which creates jobs, whereas if we left the money in the hands of civilians, we don`t know what they`d do with it.
Probably put it in open trenches and set it on fire.
— Dave Barry, The Ultimate Deterrent against Political Fallout
"They will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights"
A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.
~ James Madison, Property (1792)
The federal government of the United States of America takes away between a fifth and a quarter of all our money every year. That is eight times the Islamic zakat, the almsgiving required of believers by the Koran; it is double the tithe of the medieval church and twice the royal tribute that the prophet Samuel warned the Israelites against when they wanted him to annount a ruler…
…remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody’s head.
Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you’ll be shot.
Thus I:
- in my role as citizen and voter
- am going to shoot you
- in your role as taxpayer and ripe suck
- if you don’t pay your fair share of the national tab.
Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, “Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?”
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.
The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager.
Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.
— Calvin Coolidge, 1924 Inaugural Address
Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, “If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Attributes” (1856)
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw, Everybody’s Political What’s What (1944)
…remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody’s head.
Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you’ll be shot.
Thus I:
Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, “Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?”
Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
But Now You Know
Words of the Sentient 