The Federalist Papers · Federalist No. 21 · paragraph 11
It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, “in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.”Read in context ›
Publius · Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison · 1787–1788
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