The legitimate object of government is “to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves. (Abraham Lincoln, July 1, 1854)
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To facilitate … the performance of [government] duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate. (George Washington, September 19, 1796)
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Taxes … are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. . . .
Taxes are the price we all pay collectively to get those things done.
To divide fairly among the people the obligation to pay for these benefits has been a major part of our struggle to maintain democracy in America.
Ever since 1776 that struggle has been between two forces. On the one hand, there has been the vast majority of our citizens who believed that the benefits of democracy should be extended and who were willing to pay their fair share to extend them. On the other hand, there has been a small, but powerful group which has fought the extension of those benefits, because it did not want to pay a fair share of their cost. (FDR, October 21, 1936)
Imperative:
Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. (FDR, October 21, 1936)
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796