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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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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
Difference
Theft
Differences
Thieves
Results
Programs
Fact
Mostly
Facts
Income
Thievery
Doe
Result
Redistribution
Government
Program
Legality
Matter
Produce
Thief

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

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Democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny.
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The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.
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Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you.
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If the Constitution framers would come back today, they would have contempt for most of us.
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Legislators aren't known for being rocket scientists.
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The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny.
Walter E. Williams
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The greatest percentage of poverty is found in female-headed households. Over 70 percent of female-headed households are poor. A large percentage of poor people are children (17 percent) fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household.
Walter E. Williams
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Profit is vital to human well-being. Profit is the payment to entrepreneurs just as wages are payments to labor, interest to capital and rent to land. In order to earn profits in free markets, entrepreneurs must identify and satisfy human wants and do so in a way that economizes on society's scarce resources.
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Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom.
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.
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Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite backed up by the brute force of government.
Walter E. Williams
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Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity.
Walter E. Williams
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The message coming out of Washington, especially from our leftist politicians and the news media, is that we solve our budget problems by raising taxes on the rich. If Americans were more informed, such a message would be insulting to our intelligence. There are not enough rich people to satisfy Congress' appetite.
Walter E. Williams
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The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. This bothers some people because they're more concerned with motives than with results.
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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In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
Walter E. Williams
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Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, in government, the scum rises to the top.
Walter E. Williams
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After a Canadian has been referred to a specialist, the waiting list for gynecological surgery is four to 12 weeks, cataract removal 12 to 18 weeks, tonsillectomy three to 36 weeks and neurosurgery five to 30 weeks.
Walter E. Williams
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Communism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff - watch out!
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