# Bill Clinton — "asking the most of those who benefited the most" > [!quote] "And I think it is paid for fairly, first by cutting Government, then by asking the most of those who benefited the most in the past, and by asking more Americans to contribute today so that all of us can prosper tomorrow." > — Bill Clinton, Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on Administration Goals, February 17, 1993 ## Context Clinton's first major address to Congress, unveiling the economic plan that became the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. The law raised the top marginal income-tax rate from 31% to 39.6% and lifted the corporate rate — and passed without a single Republican vote. Clinton's framing made the distributional logic explicit: the deficit reduction would lean on those who had gained most during the 1980s. ## Why this matters The 1990s Democratic restatement of the ability-to-pay principle, made as concrete policy: a top-rate increase justified by "asking the most of those who benefited the most." The 1993 act is the empirical counterweight to supply-side theory — top rates rose and the decade produced the longest peacetime expansion to that point and a federal surplus. Clinton's line marks the last time a tax increase on high earners was enacted as the centerpiece of a president's economic program, on the explicit ground of fairness. ## Verification - **Primary source:** [The American Presidency Project, Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on Administration Goals, February 17, 1993](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-congress-administration-goals); [Miller Center transcript](https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/february-17-1993-address-joint-session-congress). - **Status:** Verbatim from the official text. Undisputed. ## Related quotes - [[Franklin D. Roosevelt - taxes according to ability to pay]] — the principle Clinton's plan operationalizes. - [[Barack Obama - the Buffett Rule]] — the next Democratic president to press the same case. - Featured in [[Presidents on Tax Fairness]].