The American wage earner and the American housewife are a lot better economists than most economists care to admit. They know that a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

remarks to a joint session of Congress, August 12, 1974. The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, p. 6. Ford was quoted as having expressed the same idea nearly fifteen years earlier: "If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have." John F. Parker, "If Elected, I Promise…," Stories and Gems of Wisdom by and About Politicians, p. 193 (1960). No source is given.