Growls

Tax Foundation blogger Alicia Hansen posted a list of tax quotes by various American presidents in honor of this year’s Presidents’ Day, February 18:

• Excessive taxation ...  will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.
      — Thomas Jefferson

• The taxpayer—that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.
      — Ronald Reagan

• The goal to strive for is a poor government and a rich people.
      — Andrew Johnson

• A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.
      — Calvin Coolidge

Here’s guessing that President Andrew Johnson would be shocked to find out just how rich today’s government is. And just how close are we to the tyranny and servitude that President Calvin Coolidge talked of?

For those of us who were around beofore the start of Presidents' Day, today is the birthday of the nation's Founding Father, George Washington.