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I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.

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
Effects
Policy
Learned
Public
Evaluate
Intentions
Opposed
Intention

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

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Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do.
Walter E. Williams
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Government schools can go for decades delivering low-quality services, and what's the result? The people who manage it earn higher pay. It's nearly impossible to fire the incompetents. And, taxpayers, who support the service, are given higher tax bills.
Walter E. Williams
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More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy.
Walter E. Williams
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Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.
Walter E. Williams
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Wealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one's fellow man ... that's what competition is all about: outpleasing your competitors to win over the consumers.
Walter E. Williams
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A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, 'Delay, Denial and Dilution,' written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care.
Walter E. Williams
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I don't know about you, but if you hear that Williams guns have been taken, you'll know Williams is dead.
Walter E. Williams
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Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.
Walter E. Williams
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Government income redistribution programs produce the same result as theft. In fact, that's what a thief does he redistributes income. The difference between government and thievery is mostly a matter of legality.
Walter E. Williams
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According to the Institute for International Economics, trade barriers cost American consumers $80 billion a year or more than $1,200 per family.
Walter E. Williams
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It's people seeking more for themselves that has produced a better life for all Americans.
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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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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The only organized political party with a Christian vision of morality is the Libertarian Party.
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
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Most Americans, who think Congress has a right to do anything for which they can get a majority vote, ignore the clearly written constitutional restraints on Congress.
Walter E. Williams
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It was Thomas Jefferson who said that we should not allow the courts to have a monopoly on the interpretation of what is constitutional and what is not.
Walter E. Williams
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Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time.
Walter E. Williams
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The crucial question for any policy is not what, are its intentions, but what are its effects?
Walter E. Williams
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Reduced employment opportunities is one effect of minimum wage legislation. The minimum wage law has imposed incalculable harm on the disadvantaged members of our society. The only moral thing to do is to repeal it.
Walter E. Williams