“I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”
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Ronald Reagan
“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Welfare was taking away the very thing that people needed most—the initiative to provide for themselves. At the same time it was undermining the family: Teenagers from the inner cities, who for various reasons decided they didn’t want to live at home anymore, discovered that by getting pregnant—they didn’t even have to wait for their baby to be born—they got a welfare check that allowed them to rent their own apartment, and they discovered they could increase their monthly welfare check any time they chose simply by getting pregnant again. Meanwhile, the father of the child might have a good job and want to live with his family. But he was told his family was better off financially if he walked out on them; if he stayed, they wouldn’t get a welfare check. Not only was the welfare program a tax-financed incentive for immorality that was destroying the family, it was responsible for an endless and malignant cycle of despair in which generation after generation went on the dole and never had any incentive to leave it.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Just think how happy you'd be if you lost everything you have right now & then got it back.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.”
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Ronald Reagan
“The first rule of a bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy. If the people running the welfare program had let their clientele find other ways of making a living, that would have reduced their importance and their budget.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.”
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Ronald Reagan
“But instead, I decided to give a speech about the pride of giving and the importance of doing things without waiting for the government to do it for you. I pointed out that when individuals or private groups were involved in helping the needy, none of the contributions were spent on overhead or administrative costs, unlike government relief programs where $2 was often spent on overhead for every $1 that went to needy people.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Tax increases don’t eliminate deficits they increase govt. spending.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”
―
Ronald Reagan
