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In general, presidents and congressmen have very limited power to do good for the economy and awesome power to do bad. The best good thing that politicians can do for the economy is to stop doing bad. In part, this can be achieved through reducing taxes and economic regulation, and staying out of our lives.

Walter E. Williams

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Walter E. Williams
Age: 84 †
Born: 1936
Born: March 31
Died: 2020
Died: December 1
Columnist
Economist
Journalist
Radio Personality
University Teacher
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Walter Williams
Walter Edward Williams
Lives
Limited
Congressman
Part
Politician
Presidents
Power
Taxes
Reducing
Best
General
Awesome
Thing
Economy
Regulation
Good
Economic
Achieved
Stop
Staying
President
Politicians
Congressmen

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

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The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.
Walter E. Williams
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As American education and intelligence becomes replaced by feelings and emotion, not seeing the forest for the trees has become a major problem.
Walter E. Williams
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Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.
Walter E. Williams
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The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.
Walter E. Williams
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The difference between a thief and a congressman: When a thief steals your money, he doesn't expect you to thank him.
Walter E. Williams
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No human should be coerced by the state to bear the medical expense, or any other expense, for his fellow man. In other words, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another is morally offensive.
Walter E. Williams
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You can bet the rent money that whatever politicians do will end up harming consumers. ... Economic ignorance is to politicians what idle hands are to the devil. Both provide the workshop for the creation of evil.
Walter E. Williams
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Students who are alien and hostile to the education process ought to be removed. You say, What will we do with them? I say that's a secondary issue. The first priority is to stop thugs from making education impossible for everyone else.
Walter E. Williams
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If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
Walter E. Williams
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A caged canary is safe but not free.
Walter E. Williams
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Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers.
Walter E. Williams
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How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal apartheid is legal Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.
Walter E. Williams
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Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity.
Walter E. Williams
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Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.
Walter E. Williams
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An increasing amount of climate research suggests a possibility of global cooling.
Walter E. Williams
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When it came to the 2000 election, 84 percent of Ivy League faculty voted for Al Gore, 6 percent for Ralph Nader and 9 percent for George Bush. In the general electorate, the vote was split at 48 percent for Gore and Bush, and 3 percent for Nader.
Walter E. Williams
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Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control.
Walter E. Williams
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Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people.
Walter E. Williams
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If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor's degree will have just as much credibility as a high school diploma.
Walter E. Williams
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Poverty in Egypt, or anywhere else, is not very difficult to explain. There are three basic causes: People are poor because they cannot produce anything highly valued by others. They can produce things highly valued by others but are hampered or prevented from doing so. Or, they volunteer to be poor.
Walter E. Williams