Subsidies Quotes

• The correlation between poverty and obesity can be traced to agricultural policies and subsidies.

  Michael Pollan

  Agriculture, Poverty, Obesity

  55 Copy quote

• Every time you cut programs, you take away a person who has a vested interest in high taxes and you put him on the tax rolls and make him a taxpayer. A farmer on subsidies is part welfare bum, whereas a free-market farmer is a small businessman with a gun.

  Grover Norquist

  Cutting, Gun, Welfare

  50 Copy quote

• Subsidies are a shell game, not a net addition to national wealth.

  Thomas Sowell

  Games, Shells, Wealth

  16 Copy quote

• Government does the least good and the most harm through subsidies.

  James Cook

  Government, Doe, Harm

  13 Copy quote

• Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Military, Moving

  Remarks to state chairs of National White House Conference on Small Business, 15 Aug. 1986

  82 Copy quote

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• Subsidies have changed the way the nation behaves.

  James Cook

  Way, Changed, Behave

  12 Copy quote

• Thanks to farm subsidies, the fine collaboration between agribusiness and Congress, soy, corn and cattle became king. And chicken soon joined them on the throne. It was during this period that the cycle of dietary and planetary destruction began, the thing we're only realizing just now.

  Mark Bittman

  Kings, Corn, Collaboration

  73 Copy quote

• The ultimate objective of subsidies should be to empower the poor, to break the cycle of poverty, and become foot-soldiers in our war on poverty.

  Narendra Modi

  War, Feet, Empowering

  9 Copy quote

• China's idea of fair trade is government subsidies of its textile and apparel exports to the United States, currency manipulation, and forgiveness of loans by its government banks.

  Virginia Foxx

  Forgiveness, Government, Ideas

  17 Copy quote

• Governmental subsidy systems promote inefficiency in production and efficiency in coercion and subservience, while penalizing efficiency in production and inefficiency in predation.

  Murray Rothbard

  Government, Coercion, Efficiency

  Murray N. Rothbard (2004). “Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar's Edition”, p.1256, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  28 Copy quote

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• The easy way to make money is to get special political privilege. From the beginning of time, business has cozied up to government and gotten restrictions on competition and subsidies and stuff.

  Charles Koch

  Government, Political, Competition

  15 Copy quote

• I don't mind payin' for the police and for streets and sanitation, or road work, bridges, trains, food subsidies and welfare. But I don't wanna pay for bombs to fight proxy wars in the middle of nowhere against enemies in the night.

  Lupe Fiasco

  War, Fighting, Night

  "Lupe Fiasco: 'I have the right to speak out'". Interview with Angus Batey, www.theguardian.com. Mach 3, 2011.

  16 Copy quote

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• We often hear a lot about subsidies, because it's often the powerful talking about the poor; the poor don't have enough voice to question the privileges.

  Kofi Annan

  Powerful, Talking, Voice

  9 Copy quote

• I've been around enough to realise that there are two things that once people have them, they don't want to give up, and it's extremely difficult to convince them to give up: one is privileges, and the other is subsidies.

  Kofi Annan

  Giving Up, Two, People

  5 Copy quote

• When the government makes loans or subsidies to business, what it does is to tax successful private business in order to support unsuccessful private business.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Philosophy, Successful, Government

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.45, Crown Business

  34 Copy quote

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• Private charity discourages poverty while public subsidies encourage it.

  James Cook

  Charity, Poverty, Discouraging

  5 Copy quote

• I don't owe my success to state subsidies but to a faithful public which has sustained me.

  Eric Rohmer

  Faithful, States

  "The French revolutionary". Interview with Tobias Grey, www.theguardian.com. September 2, 2001.

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• Last night, I had a telephone townhall for my constituents back in Vermont, and we had 11,500 people on it. And I had people on Social Security saying if getting fewer benefits will help us on the debt, they're for it. And I had a farmer saying that he's had subsidies for 35 years but we can't afford them anymore.

  Peter Welch

  Night, Years, People

  9 Copy quote

• The Bush administration and Congressional Republicans have failed to bring up comprehensive energy reform or any piece of legislation for that matter that would lower gas prices, opting instead to give massive subsidies to the oil and gas industry

  Rosa DeLauro

  Oil, Giving, Energy

  7 Copy quote

• These subsidies from four European governments, which include aircraft launch assistance, capital injections, debt forgiveness, have enabled Airbus to develop and range market airliners well below cost.

  Norm Dicks

  Forgiveness, Government, Cost

  24 Copy quote

• Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers.

  Charles Koch

  Maintaining, Taxpayers, Consumers

  "Charles G. Koch: Corporate Cronyism Harms America". "The Wall Street Journal", September 9, 2012.

  9 Copy quote

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• Rich people who own mansions on the beach shouldn't get federal subsidies. If you want to stay there, take the risk

  Geraldo Rivera

  Beach, People, Risk

  8 Copy quote

• Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.

  Robert Waterman McChesney

  Media, Law, Government

  8 Copy quote

• The U.S. and Iraq will work together next year to shift Iraqi resources from unproductive subsidies to productive uses that enable Iraqis to earn livelihoods.

  Zalmay Khalilzad

  Years, Iraq, Working Together

  6 Copy quote
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  To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!

  Jon Stewart

  War, Oil, Iraq

  "Jon Stewart Slams Rush Limbaugh’s Sandra Fluke Comments:‘He Is A Terrible Person’" by Katla McGlynn, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 03, 2012.

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