Bruce Bartlett > Quotes

“However, annexation was extremely popular throughout the South, and the issue was seized upon by former House Speaker and Tennessee Governor James K. Polk, whose strong support for bringing Texas into the Union propelled him to the Democratic nomination and the presidency.”
― Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past

“I think Republicans should fight for the black vote and blacks should fight for a place in the Republican Party, just as they fought for their civil rights in the last century. It's a necessary thing and each may find more in common with the other than they imagine. Blacks will be in a far stronger position if both parties must compete for their votes. And the Republican Party is going to need black votes to compensate for the loss of Hispanic votes resulting from the strongly anti-immigrant views of its base—views that many blacks are in sympathy with. The passing of the generation of black leaders who led the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and the rise of a new generation of black leaders like Barack Obama and others, who have lived their whole lives in a post-civil rights society, may make possible an alliance that was unthinkable just a few years ago.”
― Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past

“it took two full years for final congressional action on the Tax Reform Act of 1986 after the Treasury had already done a thorough analysis and put forward a detailed proposal.”
― Bruce Bartlett, The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take

“Tax reform may present another opportunity to address these issues and perhaps improve both the tax system and the health care system at the same time.”
― Bruce Bartlett, The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take

“In short, a tough fugitive slave law was absolutely essential to the continued viability of slavery. It was enacted only with overwhelming support from the Democratic Party.82”
― Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past

“It’s as if the concept of taxation as theft—rather than as a shared burden that all should contribute toward as the cost of maintaining a civil society—is now so widely shared that many people applaud those who have figured out how to game the system and pay less than their fair share rather than condemn them as social parasites who claim society’s benefits without paying for them.”
― Bruce Bartlett, The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take

“it is generally considered to be the best tax ever invented. It raises more revenue at less economic cost than any other tax. For this reason, many conservatives oppose it.”
― Bruce Bartlett, The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take