In The Words Of...

This weeks In The Words Of... comes from Walter E. Williams, a guest host at Rush Limbaugh and Economics Professor at George Mason University. I have been listening to some old broadcasts and reading some of his articles from his site, so I thought I would share some here at Conservative Pundit.
On Minimum Wage and here:

The idea that minimum wage legislation is an anti-poverty tool is simply sheer nonsense. Were it an anti-poverty weapon, we might save loads of foreign aid expenditures simply by advising legislators in the world's poorest countries, such as Haiti, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, to legislate higher minimum wages. Even applied to the United States, there's little evidence suggesting that increases in the minimum wage help the poor. Plus, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 2.2 percent of working adults earn the minimum wage.

On Copying Europe:

Government spending exceeds 50 percent of the GDP in France and Sweden and more than 45 percent in Germany and Italy , compared to U.S. federal, state and local spending of just under 36 percent. Government spending encourages people to rely on handouts rather than individual initiative, and the higher taxes to finance the handouts reduce incentives to work, save and invest. The European results shouldn't surprise anyone. U.S. per capita output in 2003 was $39,700, almost 40 percent higher than the average of $28,700 for European nations,.

On Foreign Aid:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, along with other G-8 leaders, have called for the doubling of foreign aid to African nations by 2010. The idea that foreign aid is a route out of poverty and political instability is not only bankrupted but a cruel and evil hoax as well.

On Taxes and Fair Tax:

You say, "What's Williams' solution?" My solution is an amendment limiting federal spending to a fixed percentage, say, 10 percent of the gross domestic product. You say, "Why 10 percent?" If 10 percent is good enough for the Baptist Church, it certainly ought to be good enough for Congress.

On Big Government:

*The bottom line: We love government because it enables us to accomplish things that if done privately would lead to arrest and imprisonment. For example, if I saw a person in need, and I took your money to help him, I'd be arrested and convicted of theft. If I get Congress to do the same thing, I am seen as compassionate.
*Thomas Paine observed, "We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. . . . It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute."

On Poverty:

Benjamin Franklin had it right when he wrote, "[T]he best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." Government dependency makes poverty easy.

And here:

Avoiding long-term poverty is not rocket science. First, graduate from high school. Second, get married before you have children, and stay married. Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage. And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior.

On Environmentalism:

The environmental extremists' true agenda has little or nothing to do with climate change. Their true agenda is to find a means to control our lives. The kind of repressive human control, not to mention government-sanctioned mass murder, seen under communism has lost any measure of intellectual respectability. So people who want that kind of control must come up with a new name, and that new name is environmentalism.

Alright, thats enough, I could spend all day at his site, reading old articles. I invite everyone to read more from what he has to say. This guy is the epitome of true conservatism.