Milton Friedman Quotes

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.

I'm not interested in wasting money on a project.

Individuals can spend their money more wisely, efficiently and more humanely than can government.

The American people need to know that money is being used effectively because frankly, the nation can't afford careless spending, no matter how well-intentioned.

The federal government should only be providing services for emergencies. You and I, taxpayers, shouldn't be paying for cell phones so someone can have a social life. I just don't think it's appropriate.

Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.

My slogan when I ran was that there is no such thing as government money, there is only taxpayer's money, and that cut pretty deep.

Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another

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.

If we could manage our own finances the way the Congress does the nation's, we'd all be living in high cotton and eating high on the hog.

The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until some one is asked to pay the bill. If we are to have a billion dollars of navy, half a billion of farm relief, etc... the people will have to furnish more revenue by paying more taxes. It is for them, through their Congress, to decide how far they wish to go.

The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending - with the exception of the money spent on them.

Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely.

Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.

We need transparency in government spending. We need to put each government expenditure online so every Floridian can see where their tax money is being spent.

It is time for us to insist that we are accountable for the money that we are spending.

Government is just spending too much money.

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

I don't mind the government accruing debts as long as every dollar is spent effectively with a high return. That works out fine. If you accumulate debts and waste your money, that's, of course, a disaster.

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

Tell me why the limousine fleet has increased by 42 percent since Barack Obama took office. Why are we spending taxpayers' money on that? Limos should be for weddings and proms, certainly not for government officials to be riding around in.

Remember that government doesn't earn one single dollar it spends. In order for you to get money from the government, that money must first be taken from somebody else.

We are not spending the Federal Government's money, we are spending the taxpayer's money, and it must be spent n a way which guarantees his money's worth and yields the fullest possible benefit to the people being helped.

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.

When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.