Popular quotes about Government! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 21
Government does not have a revenue problem; government has a spending problem. Government does not have a revenue problem; government has a priority problem. It is time that we begin to fine tune our focus and decide what the priority of government ought to be.
Marsha BlackburnYou know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.
P. J. O'RourkeBut look what happens when the government gives you rights. When the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights, the government can take them away. When government gives you rights, the government can tell you how to exercise those rights.
Rick SantorumGovernment is necessary, but the only rights we can delegate to government are the ones we possess. For example, we all have a natural right to defend ourselves against predators. Since we possess that right, we can delegate authority to government to defend us. By contrast, we don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government.
Walter E. WilliamsIf the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.
Calvin CoolidgeThe analysis in the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was that government was interfering with the efficiency of the economy through protectionism, government subsidies, and government ownership. Once the government "got out of the way," private markets would allocate resources efficiently and generate robust growth. Development would simply come.
Joseph StiglitzWe're not free because other people are nice, maybe other people aren't nice that day. We're free because we expect the institutions of government to work impersonally. That we expect people in government to understand they don't work for the president or the prime minister, they work for the government. And the government is always there.
David FrumIt is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact. To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation.
John C. CalhounConservatives and liberals are kindred spirits as far as government spending is concerned. First, let's make sure we understand what government spending is. Since government has no resources of its own, and since there's no Tooth Fairy handing Congress the funds for the programs it enacts, we are forced to recognize that government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person's property to give it to another to whom it does not belong - in effect, legalized theft.
Walter E. WilliamsGovernment is necessary for our survival. We need government in order to survive. The Founding Fathers created a special place for government. It is called the Constitution.
Michael BadnarikCalifornia will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. We won't wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it's the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western states involved. I think there's not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment.
Arnold SchwarzeneggerIf we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.
James MadisonSo what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.
Walter E. WilliamsGovernment investment unlocks a huge amount of private sector activity, but the basic research that we put into IT work that led to the Internet and lots of great companies and jobs, the basic work we put into the health care sector, where it's over $30 billion a year in R&D that led the biotech and pharma jobs. And it creates jobs and it creates new technologies that will be productized. But the government has to prime the pump here. The basic ideas, as in those other industries, start with government investment.
Bill GatesIndicate which principles you support regarding affirmative action and discrimination. 1. The federal government should discontinue affirmative action programs. 2. The federal government should prosecute cases of discrimination in the public sector. 3. The federal government should prosecute cases of discrimination in the private sector.
Newt GingrichAccording to government auditors, the stimulus money is being held up because there aren't enough government workers to oversee the spending. So follow me, in other words, government workers who aren't there are needed to spend money we don't have to create jobs that don't exist.
Jay LenoThe Government covers their own ass from things they fail to do to protect its own people from corporations that control the government, which is the reason we don't have checks and balances in this country. They checked how much balance they needed to influence congress and all the other branches of government in some way, shape, or form, and cash is king.
Immortal TechniqueBy deriving it's just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute money or property nor to force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by the people. No individual possesses the power to take another's wealth or to force others to do good, so no government has the the right to do such things either. The creature cannot exceed the creator.
Ezra Taft BensonToday the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government - a bureaucratic elite.
William E. JennerThey say, oh, letโs have multiparty politics. Letโs have different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished.
Lee Kuan YewThe tax that was supposed to soak the rich has instead soaked America. The beneficiary of the income tax has not been the poor, but big government. The income tax has given us a government bureaucracy that outnumbers the manufacturing work force. It has created welfare dependencies that have entrapped millions of Americans in an underclass that is forced to live a sordid existence of trading votes for government handouts.
Paul Craig RobertsThe problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn't much matter who controls it, because it can't do you much harm.
Harry BrowneThe media has brainwashed the electorate to expect the government to do something. The best economic policy of any government is to do nothing but reduce the size of the government, reduce the size of the laws, and reduce the size of regulations.
Marc FaberThe highest percentage of respondents say that biggest problem in the country is the government. The biggest problem facing our country today is that our government is terrible. Dissatisfaction with the government, problem numero uno by a mile.
Rachel MaddowI believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.
Stephen ColbertAs long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period... Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression - and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.
Friedrich August von HayekAmericans, both politicians and voters, may have become corrupted by big government beyond redemption. A virtuous government requires a virtuous people. A frugal government requires a self-reliant people. A free country requires people who value liberty more than money.
Charley ReeseNo matter what happens in the future, whether it is a Labor government or a Coalition government, whoever is in government is going to have to fix the budget.
Joe HockeyThe bad consequences of a government program usually don't show up immediately. And the delay may be long enough to hide the connection between the program and its results. So government never has to say it's sorry - never has to take responsibility for ht misery it causes. Instead it can blame everything on personal greed, profit-hungry corporations, and the 'private sector.' And the government's cure for the problems is to impose bigger programs, more regulation and higher taxes.
Harry BrowneThose who cry out that the government should 'do something' never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.
Thomas SowellClimate change is not about climate change. It's about the people in it getting rich off of an ever-expanding, growing, controlling government. It's all about expanding the government and government control over people. It's about creating victims. When you successfully turn somebody into a victim, you have automatically made them a dependent on you. You are essentially telling them they have lost the power necessary to solve their own problems. And you create within them a mentality that they can't overcome their own problem because they're victims.
Rush LimbaughIn terms of how Iranians see the U.S. government, that's a difficult question. But in terms of how Iranians see Americans, there is a very good mutual belief that they have so much in common with American people and they feel totally related to them. In terms of government, definitely there are some hardcore hardliners who hate the U.S. government, but at the same time, there are some more moderate.
Jason RezaianBy this action, the Government has proved that so long as it exists, none of us are truly free. Government and freedom are mutually exclusive. So if we value freedom, there's only one conclusion. It's time to get rid of this leftover relic we call Government.
Max BarryReagan said that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem. And he was going to dismantle that government. Well, long story short, he failed to do that. He built up the military to a much greater status, more people in it, and actually more employees after the end of the Reagan administration. And, to achieve his objectives, he did some of the very same things that Trump is doing to achieve his. What Ronald Reagan really wanted to dismantle was the welfare state. And he had limited success in doing that.
Brian BaloghAs long as we cling to the superstition that we must look to government for money supply, instead of requiring it to look to us, just so long must we remain the subjects of government and it is vain to follow this or that policy or party or ism in the hope of salvation. We can control government and our own destiny only through our money power and until we exert that power it is useless for us to debate the pros and cons of political programs.
E.C. RiegelPlato assumes somehow that government is a way in which you put unselfish and ungreedy men in charge of selfish and greedy men. But government is an institution whereby the people who have the greatest drive to get power over their fellow men, get in a position of controlling them. Look at the record of government. Where are these philosopher kings that Plato supposedly was trying to develop?
Milton FriedmanPeople just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.
Carol Moseley BraunThe most important thing the federal government can do is actually sit down with municipal leaders and provincial premiers to talk about the challenges they're facing in their particular areas. That's something I've committed to being a much better partner on than this current government, which doesn't like to talk to other levels of government.
Justin TrudeauThe military works like government; is financed like government, and sports the same inherent malignancies and perverse incentives of government, down to the racial-spoils system.
Ilana MercerGovernment is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.
Alexander HamiltonIt is necessary to have party organization if we are to have effective and efficient government. The only difference between a mob and a trained army is organization, and the only difference between a disorganized country and one that has the advantage of a wise and sound government is fundamentally a question of organization.
Calvin CoolidgeUnchecked, government social programs are a security threat because they weaken the ultimate line of defense: the free-born citizen whose responsibilities are not subcontracted to the government.
Mark Steyn'Trust-me' government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties.
Ronald ReaganA smaller government reflecting the needs of the middle class and poor is superior to a big government reflecting the needs of the privileged and powerful.
Robert ReichAs a citizen of Ireland I have more sovereignty over our government. Because citizens now have more ways of holding the Irish government to account, not just under Irish constitutional law, but under the European system, at Strasbourg and Brussels. This, I believe, is the benefit for individual citizens.
Mary RobinsonWhen I started to get involved in the crime issue, people said, "it's a local issue." I said, "No, there are lots of ways the federal government can help." And the best way the federal government can help, and did in the Crime Bill, is to find programs that work around the country and help them spread.
Charles Schumer