Love Quote by Bob Hope

Bob Hope’s line lands like a rimshot because it treats Washington not as a seat of ideals but as a cash register with columns. The setup is almost wholesome - “I love to go to Washington” sounds like patriotic goodwill, the kind of civic piety you’re supposed to admire. Then the punchline yanks the mask off: “if only to be near my money.” It’s not just a joke about taxes; it’s a sly confession that for many Americans, the federal government is most real when it’s reaching into your paycheck.

The intent is classic Hope: clubby, mainstream, and sharp without sounding radical. He’s not calling for revolt; he’s offering a release valve. The subtext is that Washington has become a gravitational center for personal anxiety, where your labor gets translated into policy, war, highways, and bureaucracy - all abstract until you feel the deduction. By making it about proximity, he turns taxation into something almost physical, as if your money is being stored somewhere behind the Capitol, just out of reach.

Context matters: Hope’s long mid-century reign thrived on one-liners that could play in a nightclub, on radio, and on TV, during an era when federal power ballooned through the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, and expanding social programs. The joke flatters the audience’s suspicion while keeping the comic innocent: he’s “near my money,” not scheming to get it back. Washington, in Hope’s telling, isn’t a symbol. It’s a ledger.