Johann Lamont Quotes

To Republicans, I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.

I mean, the Obama position has been, 'We think government ought to be spending this money, not the people who earn it.'

Something got screwed up in terms of your priorities if you think it's more important to get rid of the dividend tax than it is to take care of 11 million kids.

Well you know I've attracted a lot of criticism by, for example, suggesting that child benefit should be taken away from higher rate taxpaying families.

A properly designed tax system can strike a balance between helping the poor and, at the same time, giving people the incentive to work.

Liberal redistributionists in favor of heavy taxation place less weight on incentive than do small-government conservatives.

My deal is have a flat, simple tax. And - Americans want - Americans I hope - aspire to be - be wealthy. I hope they aspire to have a better quality of life. And we have this class warfare that's going on now. And I don't agree with that. I'm interested in people getting to work.

In these times of the 'Great Recession', we shouldn't be trying to shift the benefits of wealth behind some curtain. We should be celebrating and encouraging people to make as much money as they can. Profits equal tax money. While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes, I don't. I find it patriotic.

Raising taxes doesn't create jobs, and this is a common sense thing. Washington doesn't get it. They believe if they take more money and send it to Washington, D.C. somehow they create wealth. It doesn't work.

When you say fiscal responsibility, it seems to me that you really mean rich people keeping their money.

Taxes are what pays for a civilized society.

We have taxes so we can educate our kids, take care of our elderly.

The state of our state is fragile …. Our revenue system is broken because it has relied on regressive and unstable taxes …. I refuse to balance this budget on the backs of the children, the elderly, and the poor.

I don’t have anything against the rich. I just want some of their money to pay for essential services.

There's nothing wrong with paying taxes; they should be paid in proportion to how rich you are. This idea that you're going to get better growth by cutting taxes at the top has no historical justification. And it's certainly not an argument in favor of capitalism.

A budget is a reflection of our values, and as a member of the House Budget Committee, I work each year to ensure that our federal budget invests in programs that support working families, enhance our research and development capabilities, and ensure the safety and security of the American people.

We are for pension reform, jobs, the flat tax, and justice reforms.

We need a budget that will foster economic growth for all of our people, and we need to make taxes more simple and fair for working families - not give handouts to the rich.

We need to have more taxes, not less, and we need the taxes we have, certainly, to provide services - for defense and education and health care. We should not cut money here in order to cut taxes.

My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.

I think most people... would be glad to pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president, if only they could have the same economy they had when Bill Clinton was president.

The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.

Spreading the wealth punishes success while setting America on course for a greater dependency on government.

As the economy faces such difficulties, more tough questions need to be asked about what the Tories would do if elected. Their ideology of free markets and small government needs challenging. That has to be part of our job.

My premise is not to tax to destroy the wealth of the wealthy; it's to increase the wealth of the bottom and the middle class.