Amy Goldsmith Quotes

Government can’t deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch.

The Federal Government is the people and the budget is a reflection of their need

Governments that don't need to broaden their tax base have few incentives to respond to the needs of their people.

While I can see how the government has, at times, wasted taxpayers' money, and I can admit that too often its programs are ineffective, I also can see the good that government does.

A billion dollars every week for Iraq, $87 billion for Iraq. We can't get $5 billion for childcare over five years in welfare reform.

If you're going to use the public resources, you need the public benefit.

Budgets are moral documents. Federal funding should reflect the priorities and the values of the majority of the American people.

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.

A budget in difficult times can and must serve the people for whom it is designed.

Education policy ... has not been driven by sound educational considerations. It has been driven by the budget process.

A budget is a moral document of a nation’s priorities.

Cost effectiveness and effectiveness are not always the same thing in government.

Defining of the public interest is always very, very difficult.

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

Government cannot be all things to all people.

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.

A majority of Americans support Social Security and Medicare, a progressive tax system and a government that regulates business in the public interest, but most share deep skepticism about the government's ability to do all this well.

I believe the only measure of government response shouldn't be how much we spend on a situation, but rather how well we spend.

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

It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs.

The reason the government sells the census as your ticket to getting goodies - rather than as your civic duty - is that distributing goodies is now all the government does.

What Canada has to do is to have a government connected to the priorities of the people of which it is elected to serve. Those priorities include ensuring medicare is sustainable, support for the military, and tax and justice systems that work.

I think what's been lacking from our discussion for a long time is really that other part of what a Budget chair does, which is set the priorities for this country in terms of making sure we invest in the right places, in education, in job training, and to make sure we do a balanced approach moving forward.

It's wasteful spending like this that not only forces tax increases and cuts in vital services... but also really make you wonder: who is City Hall looking out for?

Spending is not caring. Spending is what politicians do instead of caring. Spending more does not guarantee success. Politicians like to measure spending because it is easier than measuring actual metrics of accomplishment.