Spencer W. Kimball

"In 1964 the First Presidency had decided to accept $2 Million in federal funds to aid in hospital construction. After further consideration, in 1965 the Presidency and the Twelve felt strongly that accepting the funds would subject the Church hospital operation to undue federal regulation, and the money therefore was not accepted. The growing impact of the federal government regulation concerned Elder Kimball.

With numerous others, I am greatly disturbed at the rapid move of our government to socialism and what seems to be an approach toward dictatorship; with a controlled Supreme Court, the administration continues to impose more and more demands upon the people...Taxes are becoming back-breaking; expenditures and waste are alarming. The Church must remain independent and furnish its own funds for all its own adventures and projects. The government seems too anxious to give, give, give to the poor, to the aged, to the schools, to everyone, and blinded people feel they are getting something, whereas they pay it to the government so that the government can after great overhead expense return a part of it to the people. And every time a gift returns to the people -- a so-called gift -- it comes with fetters binding and tying and enslaving. For every block of funds given to the people, they lose a bigger block of liberty."