by Matthew Bransgrove | Oct 9, 2015 | Taxation
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Oct 9, 2015 | Taxation
By continual taxes and seizures upon what they gain, poverty subdues their spirits, and makes them more patiently suffer all kind of injustice and violence that can be offered them, without thoughts or motion to rebellion: And so … it is impossible for a people...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Oct 9, 2015 | Taxation
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Oct 9, 2015 | Taxation
If, in taxing labor and manufactures, we exceed a certain proportion, we discourage industry, and destroy that labor and those manufactures. The like may be said of trade and navigation; they will bear but limited burdens: And we find by experience, that when higher...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Oct 9, 2015 | Taxation
The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country. He would be apt to abandon the country in which he was exposed to a vexatious inquisition, in order to be assessed to a burdensome tax, and would...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Oct 9, 2015 | Taxation
When the law interferes with people’s pursuit of their own values, they will try to find a way around. They will evade the law, they will break the law, or they will leave the country. Few of us believe in a moral code that justifies forcing people to give up much of...
