“On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions.”

— Milton Friedman

"The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits" in The New York Times Magazine (13 September 1970) http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html
Context: On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions. We have established elaborate constitutional, parliamentary and judicial provisions to control these functions, to assure that taxes are imposed so far as possible in accordance with the preferences and desires of the public — after all, "taxation without representation" was one of the battle cries of the American Revolution. We have a system of checks and balances to separate the legislative function of imposing taxes and enacting expenditures from the executive function of collecting taxes and administering expenditure programs and from the judicial function of mediating disputes and interpreting the law.
Here the businessman — self-selected or appointed directly or indirectly by stockholders — is to be simultaneously legislator, executive and, jurist. He is to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds — all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to restrain inflation, improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and on.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental funct…" by Milton Friedman?

Milton Friedman 158

American economist, statistician, and writer 1912–2006

Related quotes

“Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate 'promises', they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

1990s, Letter to the Union-Sun & Journal (1992)

“We don't need a flat tax, but a flattening tax, to truly level the playing field.”

Jello Biafra (1958) singer and activist

Address to the US Green Party

“In the developed world taxation is always a political construct, a living organism that is always changing due to endless modifications imposed by lawmakers who are themselves sensitive to the public mood and to changes in social ideology. This is a haphazard scaffolding without an architect that lacks rationality and coherency, with tax and social expenditures- referred to here as social and tax expenditures - constituting a superstructure that is all the more complex given its roots in a tax system whose benchmark standards are subject to innumerable exceptions.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

Tax policy, Tax and Social Expenditures

“The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.”

Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886) American politician, 21st President of the United States (in office from 1881 to 1885)

Veto message of Rivers and Harbor Bill (1882).
1880s

“Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Speech on the Independence of Parliament (1780)

“The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for “social” purposes. He becomes in effect a public employe, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employe of private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants—insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window‐dressing—should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be selected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster “social” objectives, then political machinery must be set up to guide the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served. This is the basic reason why the doctrine of “social responsibility” involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

“Frequently, military expenditures are “secret” or concealed, thus frustrating the right of citizens to know how their taxes are being spent.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XVII, Section I, p. 168

“In any case of the budget deficit the private sector of the economy receives more from government expenditure than it pays in taxes.”

Michał Kalecki (1899–1970) Polish economist

Source: Theory of Economic Dynamics (1965), Chapter 3, The Determinants of Profits, p. 51

“It should come as no surprise that President Obama will raise taxes if he is reelected. But here's the shocker: he will invite the United Nations to tax Americans directly. And the proceeds would go directly to the Third World.”

Dick Morris (1947) American political commentator and consultant

2012-10-08
Obama’s second-term plan: Let the UN tax Americans
The Hill
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/260769-obamas-second-term-plan-let-the-un-tax-americans

“On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Milton Friedman 158

Related quotes

Related topics