On the recordJanuary 1, 1791
If any credit is given, it is to the disposition of the people to pay the tax, and not to the government, which lays it on.
Said by
Thomas Paine
Source
gutenberg.orgIf any credit is given, it is to the disposition of the people to pay the tax, and not to the government, which lays it on.
Paine argues in "Rights of Man" that the real credit in a nation's financial system rests with the people's willingness to pay taxes, not with the government itself.
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More from Thomas Paine
In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
The Parliaments on their part insisted that they had not only a right to remonstrate, but to reject; and on this ground they were always supported by the nation.