George McGovern Quotes

When corporations get special handouts from the government, subsidies and tax breaks, it costs you. It means you have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden expenses, and government has less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense and everything else you need.

Do you know that all of the money that we are spending, that the government is spending, must come from you? The government has no great pile of gold to which it can go to get what it gives you. The government has not one cent that it does not take from your pockets. Do not imagine, do not believe, do not go on the theory that you are not to pay this bill, unless the fundamentals of our government are to be overturned.

If the government mandates anything with a price tag on it, then it ought to fund the project.

The Pentagon budget, like all government spending, is an expression of priorities.

The essence of government is making necessary choices between competing uses of public resources.

You have got to be willing to pay for the government you want.

Government has no money of its own. All it does is take resources from one group and given them to another.

I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

Every line in the government's budget has its own constituency.

Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he doesn't know much.

Does it sound outrageous to you that military spending for fiscal year 2000 will be almost $290 billion and all other domestic discretionary spending, such as education, job training, housing, Amtrak, medical research, environment, Head Start and many other worthwhile programs will total $246 billion, the biggest disparity in modern times ?

The national budget is not a safe-deposit box. It is a spray can.

You can't have it both ways. You can't tell me that you're taxed enough already, and that you want constitutional government and then in the next breath say, 'Bring me home some bacon.' The pig has been picked clean.

If the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes for you and me for? Why don't it make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us?

Government is just spending too much money.

The government has become a mechanism for distributing largess, and your census form is your ticket.

Every time we spend a federal dollar, what we're doing is we're pulling money out of somebody's pocket, and we're giving it to somebody else.

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy.

I have long believed taxpayers make better use of their money than the government ever could.

The nominal budget is a poor indicator of the impact of government outlays and revenues.

There is no question that we are in a period in which we are going to have to use those sources to fund about 35 million dollars a year that used to be paid for by the federal government.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

It is a sound principle of finance, and a still sounder principle of government, that those who have the duty of expending the revenue of a country should also be saddled with the responsibility of levying and providing it.

What the government gives it must first take away.

55 percent of the national budget consists of entitlements. These are established by law but do not get funds appropriated annually—not part of the usual give and take of the Congress and the administration. If you meet the criteria of the law, you get the money.