Reagan made exactly this argument, on the record, for years — but not in this sentence. The wording in his public papers comes from the State of the Union address of January 27, 1987 ↗: “we don’t have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much.” The popular line reshapes that into “the problem is not… the problem is…”, and we could find no speech, transcript or presidential paper that contains it — only a later book crediting it to him.
“The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much” popularly credited to Ronald Reagan, but a paraphrase. What he actually said, in the State of the Union address of January 27, 1987: "we don't have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much."
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? This wording has no traceable source, so we can give it no rights status. The sentence Reagan did say is from a U.S. Government work and carries no copyright — quote that one instead (it’s in the copy block above).
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In context
Evoking the themes of power, justice and freedom. Theme: "The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
What Reagan actually said
Documented source
Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union
Delivered
January 27, 1987
Speaker
Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States
Popular wording
A later paraphrase — not in the transcript
As for those suggestions that the answer is higher taxes, the American people have repeatedly rejected that shop-worn advice. They know that we don’t have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much.
Reagan’s own wording
The familiar “the problem is not…” sentence does not appear in this passage, or anywhere else we could locate in Reagan’s papers.
The paraphrase, by contrast, has no primary paperwork: Goodreads ↗ carries it under Reagan’s name with no speech, date or document, beneath its own notice that quotes are added by users and not verified.
It does, though, have a print trail — a secondary one. The earliest appearance we can pin down is Richard A. Viguerie’s Conservatives Betrayed (Bonus Books), p. 43, which credits the sentence to Reagan without naming a speech or a date. Both Wikiquote’s Attributed section ↗ and AZQuotes ↗ trace their entries to that book, and no source we found goes any further back.
No rights status can be asserted for the popular wording, because it has no identifiable source. The passage it paraphrases — Reagan’s State of the Union address of January 27, 1987 — is a work of the U.S. Government, and 17 U.S.C. § 105 ↗ provides that copyright protection is not available for such works.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Why you see it in this form
This is not a case of the wrong speaker. It is a case of the right speaker and the wrong sentence — a tidied-up rewrite that has largely displaced the words in the record.
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The wordingRonald Reagan paraphrase
Reagan’s documented construction is “we don’t have deficits because…”, not “the problem is not…”. The 1987 State of the Union transcript ↗ reads: “we don’t have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much.”
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The sourcingQuote aggregators unsourced
Goodreads ↗ carries the paraphrase under Reagan’s name with no speech, date or document attached, beneath its own notice that quotations are added by users and not verified. Quote Investigator has no article on this quote, and Wikiquote’s Reagan page ↗ files this wording under Attributed — credited to Reagan but with no primary source behind it. Its only citation is a secondary one: Richard A. Viguerie, Conservatives Betrayed (Bonus Books), p. 43.
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The versionsReagan said it at least three different ways variants
✓Reagan really did make this argument, repeatedly and on the record. The sentence to quote is the one in the State of the Union of January 27, 1987 ↗: “we don’t have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much.”
Context
Why it mattered
Compressed into a single balanced sentence, this is the whole of Reaganomics as a moral claim rather than an economic one: the deficit is not a shortfall of revenue but an excess of appetite. That framing let Reagan defend tax cuts and a widening deficit in the same breath, and it is why the line has long outlived him as a fiscal slogan.
He clearly liked the shape of it and kept refitting it. In March 1982 ↗ the noun was the trillion-dollar debt; on the 1986 campaign trail ↗ it was the deficit and the culprit was Congress; by the 1987 State of the Union ↗ it had settled into the pair of clauses that the popular paraphrase then sanded smooth.
Not the wrong speaker — the wrong sentence.
Read the full story
Worth noting what the paraphrase quietly loses. Reagan was answering a specific charge: that the cure for the deficit was higher taxes. In the transcript the line is preceded by his dismissal of “those suggestions that the answer is higher taxes” as advice the public had already rejected. Stripped of that setup, the sentence reads as a timeless axiom rather than a rebuttal delivered in a particular budget fight.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1911–2004 · 40th U.S. President & Governor of California
Ronald Reagan was born February 6, 1911 and died June 5, 2004, having served as Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A radio announcer and film actor before he entered politics, he built his case in short, symmetrical sentences designed to be remembered rather than parsed — which is exactly why so many of them circulate today in smoothed-out forms he never actually spoke.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Documented source
Ronald Reagan, “Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union,” January 27, 1987, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives; also in The American Presidency Project. The popular sentence is an undocumented paraphrase of this passage.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-problem-is-not-that-people-are-taxed-too-little-the/