#Spending Quotes

“That's what a Congressman or a Senator is for -- to see that too much money don't accumulate in the national Treasury.”

“Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago.”

“The crime of taxation is not in the taking it, it's in the way that it's spent.”

“If we could just go back the last two or three years and do our buying a little more carefully, why... we would be O.K.”

“It's easier to create money than to spend it.”

“We have been just going like a house afire, and we couldent see any reason why we shouldent keep right on burning. Our tastes were acquired on credit, and we wanted to keep on enjoying 'em on credit.”

“It wasn't what we needed then that was hurting us, it was what we was paying for that we had already used up. The country was just buying gasoline for a leaky tank. Everything was going into a gopher hole and you couldent see where you was going to get any of it back.”

“I mean, we'll be pounding on the guy's chest, you know, on the floor, and you know, he's not going to just jump up all of a sudden. So it makes it tough. I mean, it's tough to be in the legislature, you know, and vote for something and then people say, well, you voted all this money and you know, it's all getting spent. It isn't getting spent. It's getting invested. But it's all getting spent. Nothing's happening.”

“Someone once said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. That may have been true when he said it, but today taxes are mostly the price we pay so that politicians can play Santa Claus and get reelected.”

“Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“The American taxing structure, the purpose of which was to serve the people, began instead to serve the insatiable appetite of government. If you will forgive me, you know someone has once likened government to a baby. It is an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently.”

“Whether government finances its added spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending. Furthermore, private spending is generally more efficient than the government spending that would replace it because people act more carefully when they spend their own money than when they spend other people's money.”

“I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant and spending all my money: and what is worse for you, I have been spending yours too.”

“Thrift is care and scruple in the spending of one's means. It is not a virtue and it requires neither skill nor talent.”

“There is no practice more dangerous than that of borrowing money; for when money can be had in this way, repayment is seldom thought of in time, the interest becomes a loss, exertions to raise it by dent of industry cease, it comes easy and is spent freely, and many things (are) indulged in that would never be thought of if (they were) to be purchased by the sweat of the brow.”

“I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues in this campaign. In my opinion it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business.”

“If we do not halt this steady process of building commissions and regulatory bodies and the special legislation like huge inverted pyramids over every one of the simple constitutional provisions, we shall soon be spending many billions of dollars more.”

“We are going to tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”

“If it were not for the Belly, the Back might wear Gold.”

“Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself.”

“To defend Western Europe we have to let the Pentagon buy all these tanks and guns and things, and the Pentagon is unable to buy any object that that costs less than a condominium in Vail. If the Pentagon needs, say, fruit, it will argue that it must have fruit that can withstand the rigors of combat conditions, and it will wind up purchasing the FX-700 Seedless Tactical Grape, which will cost $160,000 per bunch, and will have an 83 percent failure rate.”

“Great spenders are bad lenders.”

“At a great pennyworth pause a while.”

“Many have been ruined by buying good Pennyworths.”

“All things are cheap to the saving, dear to the wasteful”

“A bargain is something you have to find a use for once you have bought it.”

“Economy is half the battle in life, but it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well. Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste.”

“Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.”

“Many estates are spent in the getting, since women for tea forsake spinning and knitting, and men for punch forsake hewing and splitting.”

“Before you consult your fancy, consult your purse.”