Leadership Quote by Kay Bailey Hutchison

“Texans should not be taxed on our taxes” is a politician’s perfect bit of Texas-sized rhetoric: simple, indignant, and a little slippery. Kay Bailey Hutchison is aiming for a specific target - the notion of “taxing a tax,” usually shorthand for sales tax applied to something already tax-laden (gasoline is the classic example) or for layered levies that make government feel like it’s taking a cut twice. The line turns a technical policy complaint into a gut-level grievance, the kind that plays well in a state where suspicion of distant government is practically a civic sport.

The subtext is identity politics in fiscal drag. “Texans” isn’t just a geographic label; it’s a moral category. The sentence frames Texans as a coherent “we” being treated unfairly by an implied “they” - Washington, regulators, bureaucrats, anyone not rooted in the state’s self-image of independence. It’s also a clever move because it shifts attention away from what taxes pay for and toward the emotional insult of being nickel-and-dimed.

The phrase works because it sounds like plain common sense while smuggling in a broader anti-tax worldview. It’s not arguing about tradeoffs, budgets, or who benefits; it’s arguing about dignity. And it’s designed for repetition: the circularity (“taxed on our taxes”) is memorable, almost chant-like, which matters in campaigning and cable news. Policy gets flattened into a slogan, and that’s the point: make complexity feel like robbery.