Why do we fully tax some kinds of income from capital, like interest and dividends; partially tax other kinds like capital gains; defer tax on other kinds, like IRAs; and impose no tax at all on still other types of capital income, like interest on municipal bonds? This simply is not rational. These distinctions don't have any inherent logic.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the inconsistency in how different types of capital income are taxed.
Bill Bradley highlights the lack of coherence in the tax treatment of various forms of capital income. He points out that different types of income, such as interest, dividends, capital gains, and municipal bond interest, are subjected to varying tax rates or exemptions without a logical basis, suggesting that this complexity is irrational and calls for a more equitable tax system.
In practice
In a public finance seminar discussing tax policy.
Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it. No destructive lies. No ridiculous fears. No debilitating anger.
Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.
Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.
Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.
We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty.
There has never been a great athlete who died not knowing what pain is.
When people begin anticipating inflation, it doesn't do you any good anymore, because any benefit of inflation comes from the fact that you do better than you thought you were going to do.
In a perfect world what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving
The real bosses, in the capitalist system of market economy, are the consumers.
The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.
As the science of economics...exploded the fallacies of every brand of utopianism, it was outlawed and stigmatized as unscientific.
A winner-takes-all economy that offers only limited access to the middle class is a recipe for democratic malaise and dereliction.
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