The people in the United States—or at least some of the states—have two basic rights, the right to vote and the right to legally petition. I think th… - Howard Jarvis

I tell off reporters when I think they’re asking me a stupid question or an irrelevant one. I compare their business to everyone else’s. I say they’re not a privileged class. They have no right to ask me what color toilet paper I use any more than I have a right to ask them how many times they had sex last week. And when they suggest that the apartment business should be under rent control, I say, ‘How would you like it if you were under censorship?’ That always stops them.

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.

An oppressive legislature could drive the people to refuse to pay their taxes and to revolt with guns. We didn’t want that, so we were trying to create a revolution with fountain pens, rather than with rifles, clubs, or a confrontation between the people and the government.