Government Spending Quotes

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”
― Jon Stewart

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
― James Madison

“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
― James Madison

“The diseconomies of capitalism are treated as the public's responsibility. Corporate America skims the cream and leaves the bill for us to pay, then boasts about how productive and efficient it is and complains about our wasteful government.”
― Michael Parenti, Against Empire

“It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government

“I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I remember hearing on the radio, 'the plane's hitting,' and I remember thinking my grandfather, who worked for the FBI at the time, was in the Pentagon when the plane hit it...I take the threat of terrorism seriously, and I think we all do. And I think it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort-of scandalize our memories to sort-of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through -- and to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up, and that our Constitution says we should not give up.”
― Edward Snowden

“Whether voting Republican or Democrat, the result is the same: A corrupt corporate government.”
― Steven Magee

“Behind the facade of elected government are a bunch of corporate controlled gangsters running the country.”
― Steven Magee

“The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the world had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood.”
― Michael Hastings, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan

“Corrupt governments are run by corrupt politicians that run corrupt law enforcement agencies.”
― Steven Magee

“If you want to be lied to, all you have to do is believe everything that the government tells you.”
― Steven Magee

“Government scientists are commonly as corrupt as the corporate government that employs them.”
― Steven Magee

“It has been my personal experience that the government engages in a wide range of frauds with the common people.”
― Steven Magee

“That which we want less of in society should rarely be privatized and that which we want more of often should be.”
― William MacGregor Robson

“I sincerely hope that President Barack Obama’s government will be remembered as the peak of deregulated corporate corruption and not the ongoing rise of it.”
― Steven Magee

“A highway, a bridge, a navigable canal, for example, may in most cases be both made and maintained by a small toll upon the carriages which make use of them: a harbour, by moderate port-duty upon the tonnage of the shipping which load or unload in it. The coinage, another institution for facilitating commerce, in many countries, not only defrays its own expense, but affords a small revenue or seignorage to the sovereign. The post-office, another institution for the same purpose, over and above defraying its own expense, affords in almost all countries a very considerable revenue to the sovereign.

When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the lighters which sail upon a navigable canal, pay toll in proportion to their weight or their tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those public works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. It seems scarce possible to invent a more equitable way of maintaining such works.”
― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

“According to an original reading of the Constitution and Declaration, the intrusiveness that is an inevitable part of big government is an offense against its people.”
― A.E. Samaan

“It is clear that the protective functions of workplace health and safety have transferred to the workers through the process of corporate government deregulation and reduced funding of relevant government departments.”
― Steven Magee

“The act of war itself is the least productive activity for mankind. It consumes men and materials, demands our time and energies which might otherwise be used to advance our nation, spends the treasure and labors of the people, orphans our children, and is the source for unspeakable violence, tragedy, sorrow and waste. My opinion of war can be summed up in five words: Destructive. Wasteful. Expensive. Inflationary. Bureaucratic. In this opinion, I am not alone, nor was I the first to make the observation I am certain.”
― Daniel Rundquist

“... why isn't cutting government spending a viable alternative to maintaining high taxes?”
― Ben Shapiro, Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth

“It (balancing the budget) is like protecting your virtue, you have to learn to say no!”
― Ronald Reagan

“There has never been a more important time to vote for the Green Party!”
― Steven Magee

“A governance model steeped in ethical practices earns public trust and legitimacy. When citizens witness their government’s unwavering commitment to ethical standards, it reinforces the foundations of a stable, harmonious society.”
― Abdellatif Raji, Heaven Is Under the Feet of Governments: Steering Nations With Maqasid