When the government makes loans or subsidies to business, what it does is to tax successful private business in order to support unsuccessful private business.
Henry HazlittThe government has nothing to give to anybody that it doesn't first take from someone else.
Henry HazlittWhen any welfare scheme is being proposed, its political sponsors always dwell on what a generous and compassionate government should pay to Paul; they neglect to mention that this additional money must be seized from Peter.
Henry HazlittThere can be little doubt that many egalitarians are motivated at least partly by envy.
Henry HazlittThere is a strange idea aboard, held by all monetary cranks, that credit is something a banker gives to a man. Credit, on the contrary, is something a man already has. He has it, perhaps, because he already has marketable assets of a greater cash value than the loan for which he is asking. Or he has it because his character and past record have earned it. He brings it into the bank with him. That is why the banker makes him the loan.
Henry Hazlitt