David Boaz Quotations

I don't believe in taxing the good people of Kansas, New Hampshire, and California $30 billion on the grounds that otherwise you'll tax them more later. If we actually had saved all the money that advocates of government spending had promised their programs would save, the federal budget would be negative by now.

Businesses and nonprofits deal with 15% revenue losses all the time.

Half the stories in every newspaper should be headlined 'Stop me before I legislate again

Most change in America doesn't come from, politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn't come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up.

People in government are self-interested just like people in business.

The real reason to abolish departments like Energy and Education is not to promote efficiency, nor even to save taxpayers’ money. It is that many agencies perform functions that are not Federal responsibility. The founders delegated to the Government only strictly defined authority in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution. Search the entire Constitution, and you will find no authorization for Congress to subsidize the arts, finance and regulate education or invest tax revenues in energy research.

Libertarians have always battled the age-old scourge of war. They understood that war brought death and destruction on a grand scale, disrupted family and economic life, and put more power in the hands of the ruling class - which might explain why the rulers did not always share the popular sentiment for peace. Free men and women, of course, have often had to defend their own societies against foreign threats; but throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict.

American [public] schools are failing because they are organized according to a bureaucratic, monopolistic model; their organizing principle is basically the same as that of a socialist economy.

We faced a crisis caused by the Federal Reserve, the corporate tax system, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. But the response of many people in Washington was to blame it on capitalism.

The only way to break the cycle of unwed motherhood, fatherless children, poverty, crime, and welfare is to recognize that welfare causes more problems than it cures.

We should distinguish at this point between "government" and "state" ... A government is the consensual organization by which we adjudicate disputes, defend our rights, and provide for certain common needs ... A state on the other hand, is a coercive organization asserting or enjoying a monopoly over the use of physical force in some geographic area and exercising power over its subjects.

One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can't tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, but a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism. If a group of people - even a very large group - wanted to purchase land and own it in common, they would be free to do so. The libertarian legal order would require only that no one be coerced into joining or giving up his property.

Taxes should be lower, flatter, and simpler, in that order.

Don't hit other people, don't take their stuff and keep your promises.

Maybe that's because guns are sold at a profit, while schools are provided by the government.

The stark truth is that as long as the welfare state makes it possible for young women - or teenage girls - to have children without a husband and survive without a job, out-of-wedlock births will remain ruinously high, and the inner city will continue to be marked by crime, poverty, and despair.

In 1776, 1950, or now, there's never been a golden age of liberty, and there never will be. People who value freedom will always have to defend it from those who claim the right to wield power over others. ... And, in today's world, that means more than a musket by the door. It means being an active citizen.

Conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult.

Each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.

The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.

We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come. We didn't get that.

Why are taxpayers in California and Texas and Massachusetts paying for a museum in Indianapolis?

There's a real question whether we want to get all those people back into New Orleans. It's more logical that the money should follow the people.

George Mason is classified as a school where there are some libertarian professors, and that makes it somewhat unusual. There are a lot of colleges not welcoming to libertarians and conservatives.

The main argument we would make is that marriage law has always been left to the states.

The initial reaction was to throw heaps and heaps of money at the problem. While you've had increases in welfare spending over the last 40 years, you've also had increases in the number of unwed mothers, increases in crime.

The fundamental class division in any society is not between rich and poor, or between farmers and city dwellers, but between tax payers and tax consumers

Among advocates of limited government there is despair. This is the biggest-spending president since Lyndon Johnson. And if he spends the kind of money that's being talked about here, I don't know if there will ever have been a president who increased spending as fast as this one did.