Bush's Tax Policy: A Return to a Former Time

"In his capacity as protector, the noble earned exemption from direct taxation by poll or hearth-tax, although not from the aids or sales taxes. These, however, took proportionately more from the poor than from the rich. The assumption was that taxpaying was ignoble...Taxation like usury rested on principles that were anything but clearly defined and so muddled by ad hoc additions, exemptions, and arrangements that it was impossible to count on a definite amount of returns."


Barbara W. Tuchman “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” p. 15.