On the record
To maintain a great surplus by heavy taxes to pay off debt has never yet in this country been possible, and to maintain a surplus of the American magnitude would be plainly impossible.
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Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “To maintain a great surplus by heavy taxes to pay off debt has never yet in this country been possible, and to maintain…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot argues that maintaining a large surplus through heavy taxation has historically been unfeasible in England.
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More from Walter Bagehot
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
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