The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

Will Rogers (1879–1935), a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, humorist, and social commentator, became famous for poking fun at American politics and public life in the 1920s–1930s. This quip belongs to his recurring theme that government—especially Congress—has a talent for making ordinary burdens heavier through legislation. It riffs on the older proverb that “nothing is certain but death and taxes,” updating it for a modern, congressional era in which tax laws and rates seemed to change frequently. Rogers’ humor often used plainspoken, folksy phrasing to express popular frustration with political institutions while remaining broadly nonpartisan in tone.

The joke contrasts two inevitabilities: death, which is final and unchanging, and taxes, which are not only unavoidable but also subject to continual expansion. By saying taxes “get worse every time Congress meets,” Rogers satirizes legislative productivity as a source of complication and increased burden rather than improvement. The line’s bite comes from treating Congress’s routine function—meeting and making laws—as a predictable mechanism for making citizens’ lives harder. More broadly, it captures a skeptical, democratic attitude toward government: even necessary institutions can drift toward self-perpetuating growth, and humor becomes a way to register dissent without polemic.

1) “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”
2) “The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”
3) “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the Congress meets.”