"This practice of borrowing is a practice that in the long run will make us less wealthy. The practice of spending money we dont have inherently, in the long run, has to make you less wealthy, unless youre spending it for things that add value to your society. So if youre borrowing to build... the Erie Canal, the Interstate Highway system, to educate young people so that their productive minds will make more value in the future, youre making an investment in the future. Thats not what were doing with our borrowing. Were... simply spending money we dont have today... transferring enormous amounts of money to big corporations and wealthy individuals."
David Cay Boyle Johnston is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.
"As taxpayers we gave one of Warren Buffets companies, in 2006, an interest-free loan of $665 million dollars, and he only has to pay half of it back 28 years from now. ...Imagine ...you bought a house in 1980 at the price in 1980. Up until now [2009] you havent made any payments on the house, and this year you have to pay half in the... dollars you agreed to back then, no adjustment for inflation. Do you think that alone might make you a wealthy man?"
David Cay Johnston"For five months, Trumps campaign manager was Paul Manafort, advisor to dictators and near dictators including a pro-Moscow regime in Ukraine that was ousted by a popular uprising."
David Cay Johnston"[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"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"Everything has rules... The rules that we set really determines who benefits and who bears the burden. ...[W]e have all of these policies ...that largely determine whats happening. ...[I]n America... we live in a society... where coming out of the Great Recession, a third [33%] of all increased income through 2012 went to the top 16,000 households, thats the 1% of the 1% [1 out of 10,000], 95% of that income went to the top 1%, and the bottom 90 per cents income actually fell... to the level of 1966... [T]hat happened because the government rules, in many ways, from who gets access to quality education, to who gets proper health care, to incarceration policies, are shaping whats happening to our society."
David Cay Johnston"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 hasnt been a member of Congress with a comprehensive understanding of the laws since ..."
David Cay Johnston