Wealth & Money Quote by James Talent

A politician doesn’t say “wealthy people” and “corporate criminals” in the same breath by accident. James Talent is trying to do two things at once: tap into populist anger at a rigged system, and keep the target narrow enough that it doesn’t sound like a blanket war on success. The line is built on a moral frame, not an economic one. “Hide their assets” conjures shell companies, offshore accounts, and lawyers paid to make accountability feel optional. It’s vivid, almost cinematic, and it primes the listener to see avoidance not as savvy planning but as concealment.

The rhetorical trick is the pivot from “should not allow” to “avoid paying their bills.” That second phrase is deliberately domestic. Everyone understands bills. It yanks white-collar wrongdoing out of the abstract world of “tax optimization” and drops it into the everyday experience of deadbeats and skipped rent. The subtext: ordinary people pay what they owe; the powerful hire a maze to escape consequences.

“Including corporate criminals” is the political inoculation. It signals that the real villain is illegality and fraud, not wealth per se, while still flattering the voter’s suspicion that corporate America gets a different rulebook. In the post-2008, post-Panama Papers atmosphere where “accountability” often feels like a press release, the quote positions enforcement as a matter of civic self-respect: government isn’t just collecting revenue, it’s refusing to be played.