When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic? Ben Franklin
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny” Thomas Jefferson
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds . . . we [will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent . . . till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. Thomas Jefferson
