Joseph P. Kennedy Quotes

I've had a tough time learning how to act like a Congressman. Today, I actually spent some of my own money.

Voters are people with the God-given right to decide who will waste their money for them.

I firmly believe that the most important feature of spending the people's money is complete transparency.

Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision.

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.

If you can take my tax money and assure me that it'll go to the right purpose, that it will help the poor, then fine. But I'm not sure a lot of it does. In fact, I know a lot of it doesn't.

I am looking forward to learning at the knee of Paul Ryan. He doesn't strike me as a politician. He strikes me as an economist.

The safest course for public officials is simply to throw all of the money in a sack.

It's wrong that members of Congress can purchase luxury airfare with taxpayer money when many families in my district and across the county are struggling to make ends meet.

Congress is not an ATM

We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right [individually] to appropriate a dollar of the public money.

Your money has never been safe in the government's hands, and it never will be. Governments spend money; it's just their nature.

I think Australians are more interested in what I am doing with their money than what I am doing with my own.

If you spend your own money on yourself, you care how much you spend and how well you spend it. If you spend your own money on someone else, you care how much you spend, but you don't care how well it is spent. If you spend someone else's money on yourself, you don't care how much you spend, but you do care how well it is spent. And finally, if you spend someone else's money on someone else, you don't care how much you spend, and you don't care how well it is spent. That is government.

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, 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% of our national income.

You wouldn't run for the United States Senate or for governor or for anything else without answering people's questions about what you believe. And I think the Supreme Court is no different.

We don't spend money properly in Washington, D.C. We jump these massive bills to massive bills.

In many cases, here we are, putting out reports that we're spending $100 million a year on, and we're telling the public, 'Oh, you don't have access to them.'

I've made no secret that although I loved being a legislator, I particularly loved being a chief executive.

The money that government spends is your money, not government's, and you know how to spend it better.

I have had the fortunate privilege of serving as a state representative for residents in the great cities of Detroit, River Rouge, and Ecorse.

Obviously, I am a member of Congress, and things that I say are elevated on a national level, and I understand that very clearly.

We can and must support our MPs in doing the job they will be elected to do: to hold the government to account in order to do what's best for Britain.

With each new appropriations bill Congress considers, I have to ask myself, 'Is this a good way to spend taxpayer dollars?'

I represent the 9th Congressional District of Georgia. I'm their voice.