Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes.

The quip frames government as a communal household: citizens and interest groups readily accept public benefits (“eat at the government’s table”) while resisting the burdens that make those benefits possible (“do the dishes”), such as paying taxes, accepting regulation, or contributing civic labor. It satirizes a common asymmetry in political life—demanding services without acknowledging costs—and can be read as a critique of entitlement, free-riding, or selective anti-government rhetoric (wanting subsidies or protections while denouncing government when it asks for sacrifice). At a deeper level, it implies that democratic governance requires shared responsibility, not only shared consumption.