Margaret Thatcher - There is no such thing as public money

One of the great debates of our time is about how much of your money should be spent by the state, and how much you should keep to spend on your family. Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the state has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves. Margaret Thatcher addresses the Conservative Party conference in 1983. Source: olibourgeoisie YouTube channel.

Transcript:

One of the great debates of our time is about how much of your money should be spent by the state, and how much you should keep to spend on your family. Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the state has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more, it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more, and it's no good thinking that someone else will pay. That someone else is you. There is no such thing as public money. There is only taxpayers' money.

A prosperity won't come by inventing more and more lavish public expenditure programs. You don't grow richer by ordering another checkbook from the bank. And no nation ever grew more prosperous by taxing its citizens beyond their capacity to pay. We have a duty to make sure that every penny piece we raise in taxation is spent wisely and well, for it is our party which is dedicated to good housekeeping. Indeed, I wouldn't mind betting, but if Mr. Gladstone were alive today, he'd be reapplying to join the Conservative Party.

Protecting the taxpayers' purse, protecting the public services, these are our two great tasks, and the demands have to be reconciled. A very pleasant it would be, a very popular to say: spend more on this, expand more on that. And of course we all have our favorite causes. I know I do. But someone has to add up the figures. Every business has to do it, every housewife has to do it, every government should do it, and this one will.