For me, the words ‘I’m mad as hell’ are more than a national saying, more than the title of this book; they express exactly how I feel and exactly how I felt about the woman who died at the County building, as well as countless other victims of exorbitant taxes. I can tell you, there have been thousands of people who’ve had heart attacks—some fatal—or suffer severe emotional distress as they saw their lives drastically worsened by intolerable, unproductive, and unfair taxes made all the worse by inflation and an energy crisis that the politicians and bureaucrats have not been willing to face up to.
- Howard Jarvis
My heart doesn’t bleed any more for public workers who get fired than it does for employees of private business who lose their jobs; much less, in fact. I’m not saying all public workers are bad, but I think there are too many of them who never do anything. A lot of them are cynical and arrogant and give lousy service. They have no investment in their jobs, no responsibility, and for many of them their sole objective is to avoid doing anything until they become eligible for a pension.
- Howard Jarvis
Also, I want to reduce the capital gains tax from its current level of up to 40% to a flat 15%. This would free investment capital and result in increased productivity and a decline in unemployment… Japan and Germany, for instance, have virtually no capital gains tax at all, and they have two of the strongest economies in the Western world.
- Howard Jarvis
We did know that the American dream of home ownership for everyone was being sabotaged by exploding property taxes. The entire basis of free government in America was being destroyed by virtually unlimited taxation, which can only lead first to bankruptcy and then to dictatorship.
- Howard Jarvis
The people who wrote the constitution ... didn't say life, liberty and welfare or life, liberty and food stamps.
- Howard Jarvis
In Los Angeles County alone, 400,000 people did not pay their property tax this year because they didn’t have the money. They run the risk of being forced out of their homes, which I personally believe is un-American, indecent, and criminal. There is nothing more sacred than the place where a man lives.
- Howard Jarvis