What Being a Conservative Means

I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."

Her parents beamed.

"Wow, that's a worthy goal," I told her. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where homeless guys hang out, and you can give them the $50 that you earned to use toward food and a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds, then looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.

Ronald Reagan: Politics with a Smile

"The 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."

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

"Government is like a baby - an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself."

"I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress."

"One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."

"The problem is not that people are taxed too little; the problem is that government spends too much."

"We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added."

"The taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."

"Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse."