A bit of history ...
Andrew W. Mellon was Secretary of Treasury from 1921 to 1932 serving under Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. He wrote a book - Taxation - The People's Business in 1924. You can find this online at the Internet Archive (I bought a copy online a while back).
Here is a quote from early on in his book, which seems pertinent today as we wonder how Congress and President Obama will not only improve our tax system, but address the unsustainable path of our federal budget.
"Tax revision should never be made the football either of partisan or class politics but should be worked out by those who have made a careful study of the subject in its larger aspects and are prepared to recommend the course which, in the end, will prove for the country's best interest.
"I have never viewed taxation as a means of rewarding one class of taxpayers or punishing another. If such a point of view ever controls our public policy, the traditions of freedom, justice and equality of opportunity, which are the distinguishing characteristics of our American civilization, will have disappeared and in their place we shall have class legislation with all its attendant evils." (page 11)
What do you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment