Rick Santelli Quotes

The role of government is to encourage—not discourage.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it

The people of America at some point are gonna have to realize that relying on government to fix everything is foolhardy.

The great allure of government programs in general for many people is that these programs allow decisions to be made without having to worry about the constraints of prices, which confront people at every turn in a free market.

There is far more danger in public than in private monopoly, for when Government goes into business it can always shift its losses to the taxpayers. Government never makes ends meetand that is the first requisite of business.

Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.

If you owe the bank $10,000 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $10,000,000 they have a problem. After all is said and done, more is said than done. Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Democrats believe people are basically good but must be saved from themselves by the government. Republicans believe people are basically bad but they'll be okay if they're left alone.

Any bailout of a private company is a bad decision by our federal government. Private companies have the right to succeed, but they also should have the right to fail.

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

People who receive mortgage tax relief … do not consider themselves to be benefits of government largess and can thus blithely talk about the government as something irrelevant to their lives except as a tax burden.

Moral hazard is something I don't take lightly.

‎"I feel certain that Conservatism is through unless Conservatives can demonstrate and communicate the difference between being concerned with [the unemployed, the sick without medical care, human welfare, etc.] and believing that the federal government is the proper agent for their solution.

There is a growing sentiment in America that regular saving should be ignored-that the government will take care of people and give them security when they get beyond a certain age or become old and unable to work, but it must be borne in mind that the people who earn and do save, take care of the government! Were it not for the thrifty and the willing workers, the government would be in a bad way.

Many of the liberal people tend to say, "Well, the solution is government." I couldn't disagree more. The government cannot solve the problem and never will. I believe the solution to these problems is the church and that the church should be responsible for caring for the sick, and assisting the poor, and educating.

The proper way to make policy decisions under our Constitution in America is for the people to do so through the democratic process.

Most companies want free enterprise in general because that produces better goods and services and makes people's lives better, but they don't want it in their business. They want protection from competition, they want subsidies, they want the government to pick winners and losers, and they want to be picked as winners, and that's what we're opposing, and that's what drives my whole efforts in policy, and in the political arena.

In America, we tax work, investment, employment, savings, and production, while we subsidize non-work, consumption, and debt. It's time we reverse this trend.

I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.

Governments first of all have been able to amass, through the taxation process, large sums of capital which they have redistributed to persons or groups, already large holders of capital, through official subsidies.

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Apparently the only people who are supposed to be responsible are the taxpayers - and they are increasingly made responsible for other people's irresponsibility.

Politics doesn't work. Look at the parts of America where government has had the most power, where government has spent the most money. Look at the housing projects we've got the poor people in.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of people in high places who understand the science but don't like where the policy leads them: too much government control.

In the United States especially, politics and economics don’t mix well. Politicians have all sorts of reasons to pass all sorts of laws that, as well-meaning as they may be, fail to account for the way real people respond to real-world incentives.