Quote

Everybody should pay some tax, just as everybody should vote.

Amity Shlaes

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Amity Shlaes
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: September 10
Author
Biographer
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Everybody
Taxes
Vote
Pay

More quotes by Amity Shlaes

Image
Although unions may be good for a worker, singular, they are not always good for workers, plural. Especially when it comes to finding a job.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Economics are part of our life. We try to treat them separately, like over there is the economy and here is history. Econ affects history and history often doesn't get it right if it doesn't respect econ.
Amity Shlaes
Image
I think the Bushes would have liked President Coolidge, though I often wonder what nickname 43 would pick for 30. President Bush has great respect for his father, and so did President Coolidge, whose father was also in government, albeit in a smaller way.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Coolidge really hated government being in the power business. He thought it was wrong. He saw the potential for growth in the power business. He didn't want the federal government in it.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Coolidge cut the budget, and even better, cut it during peace and prosperity. He left a federal budget lower than the one that greeted him when he arrived in office. He managed to freeze or cut the budget over more than five years in office. If you look at charts of presidents - Nixon, Ike, and Reagan - you see them failing on this score.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Coolidge showed that the best government was the one that got out of the way. When he refrained, the economy grew, the Ku Klux Klan faded, and Americans got Model A's and automobiles.
Amity Shlaes
Image
In the end, all new schools, public or private, snobby or not, add value to the education market, making it bigger and more efficient, in the same way that Zuckerberg added wealth to the economy even for non-Facebook fans.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Coolidge and his treasury secretary Mellon loved new technology. Like JFK, C.C. divined that a new technology could lift the nation out of its doldrums the only difference was that JFK's new technology was space travel, and Coolidge's travel by airplane.
Amity Shlaes
Image
If Coolidge were a stock, he'd be a buy. The experts have historically ranked Coolidge in the bottom quartile or bottom half of all presidents. But his economic performance and his statesmanship suggest Coolidge belongs in the top quarter of presidents. The disparity between the Coolidge price and Coolidge value is huge. So revision is warranted.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Our conscience, our faith, our local community, even our online hobby clubs - all civilize us.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Coolidge's stat was so low he's ranked in the bottom half of presidents. What I found when I encountered this man was the leader I might like to see today.
Amity Shlaes
Image
In a way, Calvin Coolidge is better than Reagan. His tax rates were lower, and he cut budgets.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.
Amity Shlaes
Image
The 1920s are the decade that signaled the arrival of a gift that still means a lot to us: Saturday.
Amity Shlaes
Image
To investors, job creation is a second-order effect. Market participants care first about interest rates, exchange rates, bond prices and the one great factor that affects all three: the long-term solvency of a bond company called the U.S. government.
Amity Shlaes
Image
We're in a kind of vicious cycle where the media tell the politicians, and the politicians tell the people, that perception is reality, and the perception of saving dooms a politician. I don't believe perception is reality, or that all Americans think that.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Europe unified its monetary policy through the euro before it unified politically, therefore sustaining member countries' abilities to pursue the kind of independent fiscal policies that can strain a joint currency.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Today many politicians suggest that where the federal government does not act, there must be anarchy. That view is odd, blinkering out the work of state and towns, which until recently did much of our charitable and cultural work. That view also blinkers out the role of mutual societies and churches.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Right now we're concerned about budget. Right now we're concerned about the prospect of interest rate rise. We're concerned about government corruption, government handing out deals to specific groups. Coolidge fixed a problem like that. He came into a rough time and he, and Harding before him, fixed that by budgeting.
Amity Shlaes
Image
Coolidge thought budgets were virtuous. He had his econ straight. He didn't just cut taxes, he also cut the budget.
Amity Shlaes