Former President Bill Clinton told students at Georgetown University that he was grateful that he could pay more taxes every year.
“Hillary and I and some of our friends in this audience who live in New York probably pay the highest aggregate tax rates in America, and I thank God every April 15th that I’m able to do it,” Clinton said.
Clinton made his remarks during a discussion on economic policy in which he pointed out that it was important to raise taxes to balance the budget.
“As long as people in the top one to five percent are making the lion’s share – 90 percent or more – of the money, we ought to pay a lion’s share of taxes for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: that’s where the money is,” he explained.
Clinton also argued that higher tax rates were part of a progressive plan that would simultaneously ensure shared prosperity and effectively restore growth to the economy.