Quotes

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone." --French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." --commentator, author and founder of National Review William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)

Transferring wealth to those to whom the wealth belongs: "[W]e have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A [federal budget] surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day." --President Barack Obama

"[W]hat America needs to remember is that this nation is built on the backs of you -- workers who have dedicated their lifetimes to working on behalf of the issues that are so important to this nation. And before we do anything here in this town -- in this country -- we thought it is important to say 'thank you' for the work that you've done, thank you for the work that you're gonna do because we're going to need you working so very hard over the next several years." --Michelle Obama to Department of Agriculture bureaucrats **"Memo to Mrs. Obama: This nation wasn't built on the backs of government workers. Government was built on the backs of government workers. America was built on the backs of those in private enterprise." --Carol Platt Liebau