Wealth & Money Quote by Bob Schaffer

“Reducing the tax burden” is engineered to sound like relief, not ideology. Bob Schaffer’s phrasing frames taxes as dead weight on ordinary people and businesses, a load you “reduce” the way you’d reduce pain or debt. That linguistic choice smuggles in a moral claim: the default state is that the taxpayer owns the money, and government has taken too much. You’re already halfway to agreeing before the argument even starts.

The second half - “is necessary to produce economic growth” - does the harder political work. “Necessary” converts a contested policy preference into a prerequisite, as if growth is a machine with a single required input. It also narrows the debate: if you oppose the tax cut, you’re not just disagreeing on distribution or priorities; you’re opposing growth itself. The subtext is a classic wedge: prosperity is the goal everyone shares, so the speaker positions his approach as the only grown-up route to it.

Context matters. Schaffer comes from a Republican era shaped by Reagan-era supply-side logic, where tax cuts were cast as pro-growth rather than merely pro-taxpayer. The line also functions as a shield against the uncomfortable trade-offs: deficits, cuts to public services, or the question of who actually benefits when taxes fall. By keeping “tax burden” vague, the quote avoids specifying whether the burden is on corporations, high earners, or working families - and therefore avoids naming winners and losers. It’s not a technical claim; it’s a permission slip for a political agenda.