Top 100 Taxpayer Quotes
#1. I ask the American people to consider the legacy this administration has handed us in the defense budget as we spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars without the tools and ability to track these dollars.
Rick Larsen
#2. Americans for Tax Reform is a national taxpayer organization dedicated to opposing any and all tax increases. We work at the national, state and local level for lower taxes, less government spending and limited government.
Grover Norquist
#3. If your child gets asthma, the fossil fuel industry doesn't pay. Or if there's a natural disaster, the bill is paid by the taxpayer, not the fossil fuel company.
James Hansen
#4. Our superhero foreign policy draws rivers of taxpayer dollars toward the center, empowering Washington at the expense of local governments. It also empowers the president at the expense of Congress in ways that upset the balance that the authors of the Constitution took great pains to design.
Ian Bremmer
#5. Saddam Hussein played a terrible game of trying to deceive the world that he had weapons of mass destruction. Everyone bought it. The United States called him on his braggadocio, and we are all paying for the results - especially the American taxpayer.
John Shimkus
#6. Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) has called for an audit of the Pentagon, so that we finally have some transparency and accountability in how DOD spends taxpayer dollars.
Pete Hegseth
#7. We are here simply to decide whether Congress should take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund the destruction of human embryos for research.
Mike Pence
#8. By early 2009 the risks and losses associated with more than a trillion dollars' worth of bad investments were transferred from big Wall Street firms to the U.S. taxpayer.
Michael Lewis
#9. [Government's] great contribution to human wisdom ... is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
H.L. Mencken
#10. The poor taxpayer may wipe his shoes on a $3 doormat when he goes home, but not the Navy. It is, damn the cost, full feet ahead on a doormat you would be ashamed to get muddy.
William Proxmire
#11. I just don't see the social good in using taxpayer money to fund a network that provides more television and bandwidth for illegally downloading files.
Rocky Anderson
#12. As long as the big banks are allowed to remain big, their political leverage over Washington will remain big. And as long as their political leverage remains big, the taxpayer and economic tab for the next mess they create will be big.
Robert Reich
#14. I promised to empower the taxpayer - instead of a handful of big government union bosses.
Scott Walker
#15. The Medicare Part D prescription drug bill, which might be the most corrupt piece of legislation in history, was a huge giveaway of taxpayer funds to the big pharmaceutical companies.
Al Franken
#16. The government needs to help those in need, but members of Congress shouldn't take advantage of the situation and use a national tragedy as an opportunity to spend taxpayer dollars on their pet projects.
Chris Chocola
#17. So cotton growers, siphoning from the Ogallala, get three billion dollars a year in taxpayer money for fiber that is shipped to China, where it is used to make cheap clothing sold back to American chain retail stores like Wal-Mart.
Timothy Egan
#18. We don't need unelected federal agency bureaucrats in Washington telling our states what they can and can't do with respect to protecting their limited taxpayer dollars in private enterprises.
Marsha Blackburn
#19. I lived at admiralty house from 2002 until 2006 on advice from special branch on security grounds as defence secretary. The alternative of providing comprehensive security at my personal property would have entailed significant extra costs to the taxpayer.
Geoff Hoon
#20. While our nation faces many challenges that must be met regarding homeland security and our military readiness, it is imperative that we live within our means and wisely spend taxpayer dollars.
Michael Crapo
#21. It's all about the fungibility and money. If Planned Parenthood accesses hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and they use that for other purposes, then they can use other dollars to fund abortion.
Eric Cantor
#22. Most Ohioans would be surprised to know that the same Wall Street megabanks which received bailouts from taxpayers in 2009 also receive taxpayer-funded advantages today simply because of their 'too big to fail' status.
Sherrod Brown
#23. When preparing your return, you should be sure to avoid common mistakes. The two most common taxpayer mistakes, states the IRS booklet, are (1) "failure to include a current address," and (2) "failure to be a large industry that gives humongous contributions to key tax-law-writing congresspersons."
Dave Barry
#24. Republicans rejected calls for amnesty and we've fought efforts to provide illegal aliens with taxpayer funded benefits. The American people are far closer to our Republican approach to border security than they are to Nancy Pelosi's approach.
Marsha Blackburn
#25. The cost of taxpayer compliance with [the tax code] is over $80 billion per year, more than eight times the cost of the IRS budget
Charles O. Rossotti
#26. I'm sort of suspicious of most economic development projects, but the ones that encourage taxpayer-funded relocation bidding wars should be declared unconstitutional.
Gail Collins
#27. We are going to put an end to the notion that the American taxpayer exists to fund the Federal Government.
Ronald Reagan
#28. Sham marriages have been widespread; people have been allowed to settle in Britain without being able to speak English; and there have not been rules in place to stop migrants becoming a burden on the taxpayer. We are changing all of that.
Theresa May
#29. When someone describes themself as a taxpayer, they're about to be an asshole.
Demetri Martin
#30. In a word, removing control farther away from the ordinary citizen and taxpayer is tantamount to giving the intelligent, far-sighted and public spirited elements in society a longer lever to work with.
Edward Alsworth Ross
#31. The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.
Ronald Reagan
#32. We've subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits. Create these jobs.
Barack Obama
#33. I shove my reading matter back into my messenger bag (it's a novel about a private magician for hire in Chicago - your taxpayer pounds at work) and go to stand in the doorway.
Charles Stross
#34. If you were approaching the TARP investments from a pure investment standpoint, then there's no doubt in my mind the taxpayer lost, and probably lost big.
Jeb Hensarling
#35. I run a taxpayer group - the most powerful guy in D.C., nonsense. OK? There are buildings with thousands of people in them, all lobbying for more spending and higher levels of spending and more government commitments. And there are a handful - a handful of groups that fight for less spending.
Grover Norquist
#36. When we're talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, "trust me" just isn't good enough.
John McCain
#37. The GAO just released a report that said 22 percent of federal programs fail to meet their objectives. The truth is we don't know how taxpayer money is spent in Washington, D.C., which is why I think we ought to put every agency budget up on the Internet for everyone to see.
Carly Fiorina
#38. Democracy, if it meant what our forefathers said, that would be great, but unfortunately it's been corrupted by this funding and funding of campaigns. There's a much better way to do it. There could be a small amount of money given by every taxpayer to be dedicated to candidates.
George Hamilton
#39. The Byrd cronies retaliated by diverting taxpayer money to fund whites-only "segregation academies," private schools founded to circumvent integrated public schools.
Margot Lee Shetterly
#40. I firmly believe that we can protect taxpayer dollars, bus drivers' jobs, and the safety of our students. We just need a mayor who actually cares about all three.
Sal Albanese
#41. Every time you cut programs, you take away a person who has a vested interest in high taxes and you put him on the tax rolls and make him a taxpayer. A farmer on subsidies is part welfare bum, whereas a free-market farmer is a small businessman with a gun.
Grover Norquist
#42. For too many years, politicians in Washington have been eager to pledge more hard-earned taxpayer dollars to help deal with the student debt load. But this doesn't sit right with the many Americans who take pride in making fiscally responsible choices and paying off their loans on time.
John Kline
#43. The world we live in takes a multifaceted approach. To the American taxpayer: We need to be investing in improving people's lives before the terrorists try to take over.
Lindsey Graham
#44. Taxpayers have put more than $24 trillion on the line to resuscitate Wall Street after the economic meltdown of last year. With the help of this massive taxpayer support, the nation's largest banks are posting record profits.
Maria Cantwell
#45. Too many people in government seem to think they are above regular folks, and I said I would expect humility in the way each member of my team served- that they would recognize that the taxpayer is boss.
Mark Sanford
#46. In how many lives does love really play a dominant part? The average taxpayer is no more capable of a 'grand passion' than of a grand opera.
Israel Zangwill
#47. As dismayed as Americans are with the influence of the special interests that finance election campaigns, they've been reluctant to embrace the alternative: taxpayer-financed elections.
John Harwood
#48. Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned; it was - by a taxpayer.
Donald Rumsfeld
#49. Tragically, policymakers have thrown horrendous amounts of taxpayer money needed for other purposes at solving an unsubstantiated emergency. It is scandalous that so many climate scientists who fully knew that Al Gore had no basis for his irresponsible claims stood mute.
Burt Rutan
#50. I understand that government should live within its means, value the money it holds in trust from you the taxpayer, avoid waste and, above all else, observe the first maxim of good government: namely, do no avoidable harm.
Tony Abbott
#51. The average taxpayer in Germany or Japan pays less for the defense of his country than the average taxpayer in America pays for the defense of Germany or Japan.
David Bergland
#52. It's just common sense that if you only have one candidate remaining, the apparatus of government should be responsive enough to accommodate that and not spend any more taxpayer money,.
Anthony Weiner
#53. Hard as it is to imagine, there's a move afoot in Congress to take away the public's free online access to tax-funded medical research findings. That would be bad for medical discovery, bad for patients looking for the latest research results, and another rip-off of the American taxpayer.
Richard J. Roberts
#54. 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
#55. Our earliest evidence of government, in the ruins of Babylon and Egypt, shows nothing but ziggurats and pyramids of wasted taxpayer money, the TARP funds and shovel-ready stimulus programs of their day.
P. J. O'Rourke
#56. I would wager that my job has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism. I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.
Roy Spencer
#57. It's wrong that members of Congress can purchase luxury airfare with taxpayer money when many families in my district and across the county are struggling to make ends meet.
Raul Ruiz
#58. The wind industry has made major strides over the past two decades, and they have proven their industry to be efficient and self-sustainable. There is no need for the taxpayer to continue to subsidize a wind start-up tax credit.
James Lankford
#59. Even the best data security systems can't protect private taxpayer information from entrepreneurial foreign businesses than can make huge profits selling U.S. taxpayer information.
Melissa Bean
#60. The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012 would consolidate and eliminate dozens of ineffective or duplicative programs, enhance the role of job creators in workforce development decisions, and improve accountability over the use of taxpayer dollars.
John Kline
#61. Infrastructure is one of the core responsibilities of government and one that cannot be shortchanged by other controversial spending. I believe investment in infrastructure pays dividends for decades and is a wise investment of taxpayer dollars.
Douglas R. Oberhelman
#62. Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America.
Tom L. Johnson
#63. The money the president wants to borrow for Iraq will come directly out of the American taxpayer wallets in the form of Medicare and Social Security receipts. That's your money.
Robert Byrd
#64. When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that an old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had only one before.
H.L. Mencken
#65. 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
#66. Congress has a responsibility to make sure our taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly and effectively, and at the same time, that our men and women in uniform have everything they need to carry out the War on Terror.
Larry Craig
#67. We cannot allow employers in Germany to pay hourly wages of 50 cents and shift the remainder of the burden to the taxpayer. After all, we want to create jobs, not open a self-service shop for resourceful employers.
Angela Merkel
#68. Democrats see our voluntary military supported by taxpayer dollars as their personal Salvation Army. Self-interested behavior, such as deploying troops to serve the nation, is considered boorish in Manhattan salons.
Ann Coulter
#69. If the American taxpayer knew how much they paid per person to put Neil Armstrong on the moon they would never have paid it. It was hidden from them deliberately because the costs were astronomical.
Danny Boyle
#70. There is a legitimate role for development education in the UK, but I do not believe these projects give the taxpayer value for money.
Andrew Mitchell
#71. In business, poor performance leads to bankruptcy or, at a minimum, a restructuring of the company. In American education, failure entitles the bankrupt system to even more taxpayer dollars.
Cal Thomas
#72. The tax system is stacked against the average taxpayer.
Edward Kennedy
#73. How they got in touch with each other in other instances, only they know. But paying a mistress with taxpayer funds and giving her a security clearance? These were new lows.
Gary J. Byrne
#74. We have created an educational system, funded throughout the country by taxpayer dollars, that systematically turns our children away from the truth that makes them free.
Alan Keyes
#75. What I don't want to become numb to is wasting those taxpayer dollars.
Jason Chaffetz
#76. Well, where is the money? Show me the money? Our allies have put up a few billion dollars, but the American taxpayer has been required to shoulder the burden of this war.
Jim Cooper
#77. What we do know is that the American people, regardless of how they feel about the abortion issue, don't think that taxpayer money ought to be used to pay for abortions.
Mitch McConnell
#78. 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
#79. The biggest roadblock to middle-class economic advancement is that governments confiscate more than a third of all family income. Each year the average American taxpayer works 127 days - from January 1 until May 7 - just to pay taxes.
Thomas DiLorenzo
#80. A woefully corrupt and incompetent government is only a problem to the taxpayer.
Lee Broad
#81. The weather records of the U.S.A. are the best kept and most accessible in the world, thanks to consistent government/military taxpayer support. There are longer European data sets, but the U.S.A. data is enough to forecast major extreme events.
Piers Corbyn
#82. I'm not living off of any taxpayer money. If I am - if it's food stamps, it's a temporary resource.
Nadya Suleman
#83. The taxpayer group in every state is always - always referred to as nuts.
Grover Norquist
#84. I never once considered that it was appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers.
Henry Paulson
#85. The Republican name used to be synonymous with limiting the size and scope of government, and we need to re-establish that reputation. We must work to eliminate government waste, make certain taxpayer dollars go to meaningful programs, and leave resources directly with the people.
Tim Walberg
#86. Unlike Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, I never voted to provide taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood.
Ron Paul
#87. Who wants good people in government? Good people should be in the private sector. Helping us out, helping themselves out in the private sector. We want schmoes in government. We want people who can't find the doorknob. Why waste productive people, as well as looting the taxpayer?
Murray Rothbard
#88. While there are no easy solutions to this problem, the Deficit Reduction Act gets us started in the right direction by beginning with the most obvious, commonsense reforms to save taxpayer dollars.
Jim Ryun
#89. Contemporary politics is all about phony energy, about running around slamming doors for the sake of it-or, more to the point, opening them and tossing through a huge sack of taxpayer dollars.
Mark Steyn
#90. I don't think I need to be an apologist for working hard and being a very large taxpayer.
Anthony Scaramucci
#91. Where the federal government and the taxpayer has had funds misused, we need to use the full extent of the law to get those funds back for the taxpayer.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell
#92. I believe - I clearly believe that government-run health care will be bad for you as a patient. It will be bad for you as a taxpayer.
Rick Scott
#93. We are spending millions, if not billions of dollars every year on programs to fight the childhood obesity epidemic while giving almost $2 billion of taxpayer money to the junk food and fast food industries to make the epidemic worse.
Dennis Kucinich
#94. Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.
Grover Norquist
#95. A system that rewards politicians skilled at campaigning - which is the art of creating an illusion - and that puts hundreds of billions of coerced taxpayer dollars at the disposal of the winners will tend to attract men and women with a comparative advantage in manipulation.
John Stossel
#96. Save the taxpayer's money by canceling the Ares 1 and V.
Buzz Aldrin
#97. What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we're going to see magically an economic recovery.
Eric Cantor
#98. As president, I will take that common ground and sign the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. I will stop allowing taxpayer money to fund Planned Parenthood. And I will support those pregnancy centers and women's health clinics around the country that are actually serving their communities.
Carly Fiorina
#99. If personal romantic and sexual behavior ends up being public, affecting public institutions and taxpayer funds, it's fair and reasonable to debate the issue, right?
Not according to many who favor alternate lifestyles. They would rather there be no debate.
Linda Harvey
#100. Safety-net programs must make efficient use of taxpayer resources and harness the capabilities of recipients by helping them move back into the workforce.
Todd Young
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