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David Cay Johnston
250 quotes
“By deciding not to implement a rule to reduce the chances of truck drivers and train engineers' falling asleep on the job, Trump's Transportation Department has put at risk the lives of those workers as well as the lives of families traveling on our nations highways and trains. And Trump appointed to the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch, a judge who ruled that a company has the right to fire a worker who chose not to freeze to death on the job.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Donald Trump’s Favorite Drug Trafficker and Other Unsung Scandals of the Presidency From Hell (March 13, 2018) A [Mark Hertsgaard] conversation with David Cay Johnston, who has investigated Trump’s shady dealings for de…
“No serious coverage of taxes is possible without reading the journal Tax Notes published by , a nonprofit enterprise whose beneficiaries include reporters.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]axes are at the core of our democracy.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you have heard about companies using a Bermuda mailbox to escape American taxes or that the IRS audits the poor more than the rich or that Enron paid no taxes or that executives have amassed massive untaxed fortunes or that the retired chief of General Electric had a free corporate jet, then you have already had a taste for some of the more shocking stories that I have come across. ...This is not just about facts, figures and statistics.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[S]ound bytes of politicians in both parties bear as much connection to the reality of the tax system as my... grandson's belief in Santa.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]ur tax system now levies the poor, the middle class and even the upper middle class to subsidize the rich...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In every place where there is no real tax system, such as Honduras or Afghanistan, there is no widespread wealth.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he majority of Americans are being duped into supplementing the incomes and extravagant lifestyles of the rich and powerful. ...[O]ur current tax system is manipulated for profit by the wealthy and well positioned.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democrats and Republicans alike have turned the tax system into a vehicle not just to finance government but to finance social change. For the last three decades, it... has been weighing down the already deep pockets of the super rich while just weighing down everyone else.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A government that takes 90 cents out of each dollar above a threshold, as... in the Eisenhower years, is deciding to limit the wealth that people can accumulate... Likewise, a government that taxes the poor on their first dollar of wages, as the United States does with the Social Security and Medicare taxes, is deciding to limit or eliminate the ability of those at the bottom... to save... and improve their lot in life.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Congress lets business owners, investors and landlords play by one set of rules, which are filed with opportunities to hide income, fabricate deductions and reduce taxes. Congress requires wage earners to operate under another, much harsher set of rules in which every dollar of income... is reported to the government, and taxes are withheld... to make sure [they] pay in full.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Members of Congress routinely vote on tax bills that they have never read, much less understood even on a superficial level. Sanford J. Schlesinger... says that "there hasn't been a member of Congress with a comprehensive understanding of the laws since ...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For almost three decades corporate profits have been growing one third faster that corporate taxes.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many journalists rely for expert quotes on a dozen well-financed nonprofits that exist in Washington to promote policies that primarily benefit their rich donors.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The super rich... largely control what the government knows about their incomes. And their friends in Congress have slashed budgets for inspecting the tax returns...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as there is an underground economy of gardeners and handymen and petty merchants who get paid in cash and pay little or no taxes, there is also an underground economy among the super rich that lets them understate their true income and overstate their tax deductions.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For... the political donor class, the system is being remade to serve their interests while disguising the changes as benefits for every American.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he Internal Revenue Service in 2003 released its first public analysis of tax returns filed by the 400 highest income Americans... from 1992 to 2000. ...the federal income tax burden on Americans overall rose by 18 percent, it fell by 16 percent for the top 400, whose incomes soared.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After the Sixteenth Amendment... the federal government... enacted a regime to tax incomes, gifts and estates... with the explicit promise that the basic means of sustaining life would not be taxed. The original tax regime applied only to the economic elite, to... "surplus" incomes. ...[I]ncome from capital was taxed more heavily ...in the belief that it was morally offensive to take more from money earned by the sweat of one's brow ...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To pay for World War I... [t]he estate tax and the gift tax, which apply to wealth, were expanded and the income tax came to apply to a larger, but still minute, percentage of Americans.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While only a minority of people was taxed during World War II, the politicians got a taste of the huge revenues... by expanding the tax base. After the war... the income tax was steadily expanded until it applied to most Americans...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Inflation, combined with the end of real growth in wages beginning in 1973, created... "bracket creep" that moved people into higher tax brackets even if... real incomes were unchanged.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[L]ess than a century after its adoption, the tax system is being turned on its head. Since at least 1983 it has become the explicit, but unstated, policy... to let the richest Americans pay a smaller portion of their incomes in taxes and to defer more of their taxes... a stealth tax cut, while collecting more in taxes from... the middle class.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Throughout his writings Smith warned of the damage done when government interferes in the market by guaranteeing profits or by handing out gifts. This damage can exceed that caused when government taxes unwisely or imposes rules that needlessly obstruct commerce.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[F]or the past quarter century, policies adopted in the name of Adam Smith... that supposedly strengthen the invisible hand guiding the market, have weighed down our economy while simultaneously stuffing the pockets of those among the rich and powerful who solicited them or... were just standing in the right place at a lucrative time. This is our story, not of one free lunch, but of the many banquets at which billions and billions of your dollars are being served to the richest among us.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the bottom 90 percent of Americans... the vast majority, annual income has been on a long, mostly downhill slide for more than three decades. ...Even with three decades of economic expansion, the vast majority has to get by on about $75 less each week than... a generation earlier...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of each dollar people earned in 2005, the top 10 percent got 48.5¢... the greatest share of income pie since 1929, just before the collapsed into the Great Depression.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This growing concentration of income at the top... resembles the distribution of income found in three other major countries: Brasil, Mexico, and Russia. ...They all have growing, and seemingly intractable, poverty at the bottom. ...These four countries are also societies in which adults have the right to vote, but real political power is wielded by a relatively narrow, and rich, segment of the population.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rewriting the economic rules... in the past few decades has been done under the banner of "" and its promise that less government means more economic growth. The term itself is a misnomer. No society is free from regulation. Everything has rules...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the past quarter century... new rules... have weakened and even destroyed consumer protections while increasing the power of the already powerful. ...[T]he rules affecting who wins and who loses economically have been quietly and subtly rewritten.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rich and their lobbyists have taken firm control of the levers of power in Washington and state capitals while remaking the rules in their own interest. They have also imbued private organizations with the power to make rules that few outside the process understand. These same people... [are] the primary source of campaign donations that put politicians in office and keep them there.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream that one day his four children would be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. ...Today we often value people less by their character than by the contents of their wallet. ...The pursuit of ever more financial zeros... has... produced a moral breakdown... twisting our culture and our values in ways that tear at the fabric of our society.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[P]residents of companies have gone from apologizing when they had to lay off workers to boasting of the riches... obtained through mass firings. ...[I]nvestors ...owe their wealth ...to buying companies in deals that required destroying lives and careers”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the addicted, money is like cocaine: Too much is never enough.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the same time that the rules have been rewritten to favor the already rich, new rules have been written that ensure harsh treatment for the poor... Coping with the foul effects of poverty costs us trillions of dollars a year... Poverty wastes minds and spirits, robbing all of us of opportunity. ...It makes us less trusting, less willing to see ourselves as one people...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Usury laws that protected consumers against rapacious lenders existed until 1978. Now they are gone because of a Supreme Court decision. ...[O]ur government has set forth onerous new rules that reward those who prey on the poor. ...These lenders, or their fronts, can now charge rates and impose penalties that were illegal, even criminal, a generation ago.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The result? In the past 25 years, one American family in seven has sought refuge in federal bankruptcy court. Exhaustive research by Elizabeth Warren... and her associates... has proven that the vast majority of people seek refuge... after any two of three events combine: divorce, job loss, or major medical problems.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The impulse to increase profits can blind men to risk, especially when those at risk are strangers. Society imposes rules on corporate behavior to protect public safety in the face of baser impulses. These rules require enforcement...”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Britain only about 18 people a year die at rail crossings. ...Even taking into account that America has five times as many people... the death rate at crossings is four times that of Britain.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since the imperfect rules of the marketplace actually reward dangerous risk taking, the only thing that could prevent this lethal gamble is effective government regulation.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[R]ailroads are by far the most deadly form of commercial transportation in the country. ...Measure deaths by distance traveled... and trains are 52 times more deadly than trucks. Trains kill 130 people per 100 million miles traveled, compared with 2.5 deaths in big-rig truck accidents and 1.9 deaths in plane crashes.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The government agencies, without nearly enough money to oversee safety... write superficial reports, and when it comes to accidents at rail crossings, they thoroughly investigate only 4 out of 3,000 cases.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Economists have a term for situations in which someone gets rewards but has little or no incentive to avoid risk: a . ...Those who occupy the executive suite and gamble millions of dollars on the lives of others are rarely seen as engaged in morally hazardous conduct. Yet reward without risk is a form of moral hazard that blinds us to the consequences of our acts.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 2006 the trade deficit with China reached $232 billion. ...more than $60 per month for every man, woman and child in America. ...In 2004 when the trade deficit... was $161 billion, it was... more than the $126 billion of income taxes paid by the bottom 75% of Americans.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 2006... China, Japan, Canada, and Mexico—accounted for 60 percent of our worldwide trade deficit of $764 billion.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A lot of people look at the world as they're born into it and assume, like Dr. Pangloss that it must needs be that this is the way that God intended the world to be. It is nowhere written down that we will have our liberties, that we will have the freedoms that we have come to know.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a never-ending struggle against the need for the state to be strong enough to be functional and to have a civilized society, and at the same time, its desire to crush those who stand in the way.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prior to our Constitutional Bill of Rights... the historic problem for the inconvenient individual was predation by the state. If the king doesn't like you, throw him in , [if] the king wants your daughter when she's a virgin and you don't want to hand her over, cut the guy's throat.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]ne of the great geniuses of our Constitution was the recognition that the liberties of the people depended on a certain set of standards. being a crucial one, the ability to speak your mind, the ability to follow or not follow religion as you chose... [W]hen we put these in place, we had this flourishing society. It's not perfect. We've got lots of things wrong in our society. Government has problems... but there is no civilization, there is no liberty, without government.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]o the extent that people have said... "I don't care what the government's doing..." politicians fall under the influence of other people... in our age they have fallen heavily under the influence of their [political] donors. ...We have a government that is increasingly estranged from the needs of the people, and focused on the needs of the moneyed people and large corporations.”
David Cay Johnston (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source