Dr. Adrian Rogers, who died in 2005, was a pastor for 32 years at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn.

On Jan. 14, U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa posted a 1984 Rogers’ quote to the Congressional Record. The quote speaks for itself:

“Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving it.

The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody.

“And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for.

That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.”

Carol Wolfe

Bowling Green