According to the IRS, the wealthiest 400 Americans, who earned an average of roughly $270 million in 2008, paid an average tax rate of just 18.2 percent that year. That's about the same rate paid by a single truck driver in Rhode Island. It's not right, and we need to restore fairness to our tax code.

Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California. He had earned the right to be considered for President of the United States. You learn a lot about a person by the way they have served. None of this applies to Trump. There's no disclosure with him. I just think the man is a very troubled, emotional mess.

Every time a new rock singer comes out they don't say, 'Are you the new John Lennon?' Every time a new rapper comes out, it's not, 'Are you the new Dre?' I am never sure why this sort of genre, the categorization is so strong. I have not earned the right to be called the young Sinatra, but give me time.

I had to jump around in the arts for a while just to survive. I earned a little money here and there, playing the guitar at union meetings, functions. I sold some science-fiction stories. I knew there was absolutely no question of me not being connected with the arts, but I couldn't find any acting jobs.

It's just wrong to work your whole life to build up a nest egg, build your own business - you pass away, and Uncle Sam can swoop in and take away nearly half of everything you've earned. Can you imagine that? Having to sell off most of your land just to keep it from the government, just to save the house.

I value my education, but I cannot put a value on it. I know it has been worth some money to me - I don't think 'The Post' would have hired me if I had lacked a degree - but I probably could have earned about the same if I had stayed in the insurance business, where I worked while going to college at night.

I'm still the guy who shared the ring with The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Triple H when they were still actually active. And I'm aware, as my wife loves to hear. It's not different than any sport in the world where the best wrestlers are gonna get the best spots. That spot is for me, because I've earned it.

I can't count on both hands how many Grand Prixs I've done and how many world championships I've been to, so I think I've really earned the experience to know that when I step on the ice at nationals and when I step on the ice at the Olympics that I feel completely aware of my environment and what to expect.

Here's the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That's not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income of any developed country.

I went to all the shops in the village looking for work. I didn't have any qualifications. I ended up working in a grocery shop for about a year and then went to a confectioner, where I earned three pounds 10 shillings. I gave the money to my mother and father, but I also managed to save five shillings a week.

When you talk about the oil wealth you compare nations. There are some nations with less than five million people. Nigeria has 150 million people. I cannot say that all the money earned from oil since 1958, when the first drop of oil was exported from this country to date, that the money has been effectively used.

Music, that has mostly earned a 'film music' status in our country, leaves genres like jazz, folk and classical to the niche. But, something common ties all the genres of music, the skeleton of the sounds - the instruments. Instrumentalist in our country are not given their due, at least not as much as they deserve.

In 1988, I earned something like £700,000. Yeah! I was earning 10 grand an hour opening shopping centres. Yeah! The most I earned in one day was 65 grand. I opened the Alton Towers fun ride in the morning, did a commercial in the afternoon and an appearance at a nightclub in the evening. Sixty-five grand in one day!

I never want to get a job because I'm female. I want to get it because I earned it and I deserve it... Whether my hair is going to be blue or purple, people should be judged on how well they do the job and deliver results and whether they do it the right way. That's how I like to be judged; most people are like that.

Well, I like regulation as little as anybody else. It can be intrusive. It can be detailed. It can be bureaucratic. It can be unevenly administered. It can be unfair. But most regulations that we have for mutual funds and for banks are regulations that we earned. We did something wrong and we're paying a price for it.

The way some papers write about me, you'd think I was some kind of gold digger. The truth is, I've always earned my own money. Before I became a model in Europe, I even worked in a bakery store - for $1.50 an hour. It's a big jump from a bakery store to driving a Mercedes in California, but I'm the same person inside.

If I'm owed money, but I say, 'Don't pay me, pay my cousin. Don't pay me, pay my charity,' you can do that, but then the IRS requires that you pay income tax on that. It's your income if you earned it and you directed where it went. If you exercised control over where the money went, you have to pay income tax on that.

In 1967, I signed up for the Army, where I earned an equivalency diploma, then went on to join the Special Forces. That was really was the turning point in my life. I became more disciplined and focused. I went overseas and was in combat, got wounded a couple of times, lost a lot of good friends but matured a great deal.

I might not be over-enthusiastic about socialising and making friends, but I am not a loner. I love hanging out with my friends, and I do it often when I am not working. Maybe, since I am not often invited to the 'happening' parties of our industry, where the media is around, I have earned the reputation of being a loner.

There was a time not too long ago when American seniors were too often forced to go without food, medicine, and quality healthcare. But thanks to transformative programs like Social Security, most seniors in this country are provided the opportunity to live with the stability and peace of mind they have earned and deserve.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

If you apologize to me, I look at it as an insult because my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, like every other culture out there, did exactly what they needed to do. They worked hard, and they became part of the American way, and they earned the respect of Americans across the board. We need to do the same.

Flying into a storm, even its outer edges, did not seem like a good idea to me. And this was no ordinary tempest. Everyone on the bridge knew what it was: the Devil's Fist, a near-eternal typhoon that migrated about the North Indian basin year-round. She was infamous, and earned her name by striking airships out of the sky.

I don't want that title to come to my hands and be like, 'nah, I don't feel like it was deserved or it wasn't earned or whatever' - not saying that any of my accolades weren't, but I want it to be special. I want it to be super special and just super dope, and even if it's not special to everybody else, at least it is to me.

MoMA is one of the world's great cultural institutions with one of the world's premier Boards and Museum leadership. It is my distinct pleasure to work with such a talented and highly qualified group. I salute Bob Menschel for the high bar he has set and follow him in the position of Chairman with all the respect he has earned.

I have earned wages as a waitress, a nanny, a librarian, a personnel officer, an agricultural laborer, an advertising secretary, a typesetter, a proofreader, a mental-health-care provider, a substitute teacher, and a book reviewer. In and around the edges of all those jobs I have written poems, stories, and books, books, books.

And this year, when we end the cruel, defeatist practice of passing children who cannot read into fourth grade, and when our most diligent students begin to graduate from high school in 11 years, and get a head start on college costs with the dollars they earned through their hard work, others will take notice of Indiana yet again.

If a company is not a monopoly, then the law assumes market competition can restrain the company's actions. No problem. If a monopoly exists, but the monopoly does not engage in acts designed to destroy competition, then we can assume that it earned and is keeping its monopoly the pro-consumer way: by out-innovating its competitors.

With more than half of the American workforce without private pension coverage, Social Security provides economic certainty within a system that is fair, equitable, and easy to understand. You work hard, pay into the system, and the federal government makes a promise to pay back your earned benefits when you retire. It's that simple.

The answers to feeding hungry children is not fewer dollars to feed hungry children, it's to do more. It is to raise the minimum wage. It is to increase, not dismantle, the earned income tax credit. It is to make college more affordable for more middle class families, not more expensive. These are the things that grow our middle class.

My husband has some very interesting hobbies, and through him, I've learned to fly and earned my pilot's license. Together, we fly all over the United States. Since our children are all grown now, we also travel a great deal in Europe, but we take commercial flights because our plane is not really equipped to make transatlantic flights.

I call myself the hardware shelf. There's a lot of awards and honors there. And I have earned that. I didn't ask for it, I didn't beg for it, I didn't pay for it. I earned that. People see the accomplishments - but it's good to remind people that so much strife and labor and tears and heartbreak came before that, that it really is earned.

I am disappointed that my 25 years in public life have apparently not earned me the benefit of the doubt, but I understand that Senator Mitchell's report has raised many serious questions. I plan to publicly answer all of those questions at the appropriate time in the appropriate way. I only ask that in the meantime people not rush to judgment.

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