“[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson
“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
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” —Ernest Benn
“It’s incredible how generous you can be with other people’s money.” —Star Parker
“So, yes, our recent financial turmoil does suggest failure—a failure to truly practice capitalism and a failure to accept and believe in the value, appropriateness and morality of a limited government and maximum personal responsibility.” —Larry Elder
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do not deserve to be bailed out, but neither do workers, families and businesses deserve to be put through the economic wringer by a collapse of credit markets, such as occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Neither do the voters deserve to be deceived on the eve of an election by the notion that this is a failure of free markets that should be replaced by political micro-managing.” —Thomas Sowell
“Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism.” —George Will
“It is an affront to the nation that some of the people who brought on the crisis (and financially and politically benefited from the status quo) were asking the questions at the Banking Committee hearing. They should have been in the witness chair. [Sen. Chris] Dodd said the crisis was ‘entirely foreseeable and preventable.’ Then why didn’t he try to prevent it? He should have been answering questions about the PAC contributions he received from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (according to opensecrets.org, he’s the Senate’s no. 1 recipient of campaign contributions, $133,900, Barack Obama is no. 3, $105,849), his sweetheart Countrywide Financial mortgage rate and whether they influenced his inattentiveness to the growing mortgage crisis.” —Cal Thomas
“[Monday] the House of Representatives voted against the Wall Street bailout plan, a plan which House Minority Leader John Boehner called ‘a crap sandwich.’ Yeah, that’s what he said. Congress hasn’t given up though. They’re already working on a new plan which they call ‘a crap sandwich with cheese’.” —Conan O’Brien
“Merely voting ‘present won’t do it [to confront and conquer today’s financial mess]. The people in all 57 states, clinging bitterly to God, guns and now to their life’s savings, deserve nothing less.” —Wesley Pruden
“Spanish police arrested a self-styled Robin Hood in Madrid Friday. He took out millions of dollars in loans and gave the money to the poor, and now he refuses to pay it back. He had to sit in jail for two hours before he was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers.” —Argus Hamilton
Jay Leno: Before we begin, I want to warn people from Nigeria who might be watching our show, if you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it’s a scam. Don’t fall for it. ... As you know the bailout was voted down. People are stunned. Nancy Pelosi was so shocked, if she could have made a facial expression, she would have. ... You know, these things are so complicated. I guess the big problem was the plan came in two parts, and they couldn’t agree on which part to implement first: the smoke or the mirrors. ... Now that Congress is not in session, the economy made a big comeback. That’s the key—send these idiots home.
