Tools you can use to
TALK PROGRESSIVE with conservatives
(Developed by Southeast Michigan Jobs with Justice/Unity Campaign and UAW Region 1A Retired Workers Council)
Pro-Government Quotes
“(There’s) a mindset that believes that less government is the highest good no matter what … It’s an ideology that undervalues the common good, says we’re all on our own and what’s in it for me, and how do I do well, but I’m not going to invest in what we need as a community.
“And, as a consequence, you end up seeing an underinvestment in the things that we all share that make us safe, that make us whole, that give us the ability to pursue our own individual dreams. So we underinvest in pipes underground. We underinvest in bridges that we drive on, and the roads that connect us, and the schools that move us forward.”
- President Barack Obama
“Government is the tool we can use to build the kind of society we want.”
- Ken Georgetti, Canadian labor leader
“I’ve always believed what the first Republican President, a guy named Abraham Lincoln, said. He said we should do individually those things that we do best by ourselves. But through our government, we should do together what we can’t do as well for ourselves.”
- President Barack Obama
“Government does what America’s future requires and what the private sector cannot do iris not doing effectively or at all.”
-George Lakoff
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Big government is the only thing that could counter balance the power of big business and solve big societal problems like economic depression, racism, and environmental pollution”
Douglas Amy
“Privatization and deregulation are seen as virtues that lead to less government. That is a fallacy; they lead to less responsible government.”
- George Lakoff
Pro-Taxes Quotes
"Citizens should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.”
- George Washington
"Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Taxes are the lifeblood of government and no taxpayer should be permitted to escape the payment of his just share of the burden of contributing thereto."
- Arthur Vanderbilt
"In theory, taxes should be like shopping. What I buy is government services. What I pay are my taxes."
- P. J. O'Roarke
“Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
“A society that does not invest heavily in its future cannot endure”
-David Cay Johnston
“There should not be one new dime in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires as long as millions of children in America are poor, hungry, uneducated and without health coverage.”
Marian Wright Edelman
“The debate about taxes raises two questions:
(1) What kind of society do we want?
(2) How are we going to pay for it?”
David Cay Johnston
“Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
“The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.”
― Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
