Federal Quotes

#1. I would absolutely never use the federal government to enforce the law of using marijuana

Ron Paul

#2. The Original Sin which brought us to the brink of bankruptcy and dictatorship was the Federal Income Tax Amendment and its illegitimate child, Federal Aid.

Tom Anderson

#3. As state and federal lawmakers debate the country's energy policies and Colorado's role in the ever-expanding energy economy, let's hope they remember that unnecessary regulations stifle growth while doing nothing for public safety or health.

Bob Beauprez

#4. Well, it was one of my most gratifying experiences because I could devote my knowledge and my talent for the good for the City of Washington, and all the Federal projects where the Fine Arts Commission had jurisdiction, and it was a tremendous experience.

Felix De Weldon

#5. Democrats believe we must have comprehensive health care reform that includes giving the federal government authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies.

Jim Clyburn

#6. The property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly chose to exclude for demonstrating an unseemly "veneration of wealth " are now de facto in force and higher than the Founding Fathers could have imagined.

Bill Moyers

#7. 100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt ... all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government.

Ronald Reagan

#8. One day between takes on the 'Oz' set, I went into one of the cells and laid down and dozed off. When I woke up, I thought I was back in a federal pen. But I did my time, and today no one is more of a free man than Chuck Zito.

Chuck Zito

#9. Today it's something about hallucinogenic tea, but tomorrow it could be something that Roman Catholics or Southern Baptists or a number of groups need some accommodation in relation to a federal law.

Charles Haynes

#10. One day after laying a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr., President Bush appoints a federal judge who has built his career around dismantling Dr. King's legacy.

Hillary Clinton

#11. The strategy we need to pursue is one of recovering our time - to push back on our hours of work. We need to form a new alliance between feminist groups, labor unions, child advocates, progressive corporations, and the federal government insofar as it's willing to pursue a family-friendly agenda.

Arlie Russell Hochschild

#12. The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.

Thomas Jefferson

#13. Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Richard Ernst

#14. One of the challenges that Vancouver and cities across the country are facing is that we don't have a federal partner in terms of building for transit, not in the way we need.

Justin Trudeau

#15. We need to replace hyperbole with a reasonable, informed discussion about how to reinvent the federal budget with more transparency and better accountability.

Mike Quigley

#16. But no one has yet succeeded in reducing the size or scope of the federal government.

James Q. Wilson

#17. For the last 4 years, our Federal Government has produced the four biggest deficits in history, and the estimated 2006 deficit of $423 billion is projected to be the largest of all.

Melissa Bean

#18. If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.

Ronald Reagan

#19. Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole.

George Washington

#20. In America, the Federal Constitution has endured as the most sagacious conservative document in political history

Russell Kirk

#21. Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history.

Mitt Romney

#22. Certainly we can end racism with love. We can demand that the federal government change its emphasis on racial distinction.

Bell Hooks

#23. On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

Michael Badnarik

#24. Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state.

George Mason

#25. Closing the gap for women entrepreneurs should be a priority for the federal government - and yet the Small Business Administration has failed in their promise to women business owners.

Ruben Hinojosa

#26. Hurricane [Katrina] hit the Gulf Coast and destroyed much of the Gulf Coast - that was an act of God ... Now what happened to New Orleans, that was a complete failure of the federal government. Complete negligence by the feds.

James Carville

#27. The federal government is doing less than it is lawfully entitled to do to protect New York City, and the City is less safe as a result.

Raymond Kelly

#28. Even if it takes changing the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.

William J. Clinton

#29. The Federal Reserve Act as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency. I do not like to think that any law can be passed that will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency.

Henry Cabot Lodge

#30. Obama's Democrats have become the part of no. Real cuts to federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no.

Charles Krauthammer

#31. There certainly is a lot of political pressure for states to adopt the new federal tax codes. But there is no law that requires them to do so.

John Barry

#32. The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.

Donald Rumsfeld

#33. Towards four o'clock, the rebels felt strong enough to take the offensive. A brigade with a battery under Earle managed to strike the Federal right on the flank and rear and throw it into utter confusion, which spread rapidly along the whole front. Now came the disastrous end.

Henry Villard

#34. I'm proud of having been one of the first to recognize that states and the federal government have a duty to protect our natural resources from the damaging effects of pollution that can accompany industrial development.

Ronald Reagan

#35. Tourism is a top priority activity for federal government, which is why it invests an average of over 2,500 million dollars a year in infrastructure works and integral projects that promote Mexico's culture and natural attractions.

Vicente Fox

#36. Importantly, in the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve, despite its mandate, was quite passive and, as a result, financial crisis became very severe, lasted essentially from 1929 to 1933.

Ben Bernanke

#37. When Obama took office, Republican appointees controlled ten of the thirteen circuit courts of appeals; Democratic appointees now constitute a majority in nine circuits. Because federal judges have life tenure, nearly all of Obama's judges will continue serving well after he leaves office.

Jeffrey Toobin

#38. Clean water is not an expenditure of Federal funds; clean water is an investment in the future of our country.

Bud Shuster

#39. An 'exchange' would allow everyone to choose their health care insurance from a broad range of options - just like federal employees and Congress do right now - and allow their employer to help pay for it.

Andrew P. Harris

#40. Low-income seniors who choose to enroll in a drug discount plan will receive $600 of Federal assistance in 2004 and 2005 to further defray the costs of their medications.

Jim Gerlach

#41. I think as people find out about my foreign policy, what they're going to find out is that I'm right in the mainstream of the Republican Party. I believe the number one priority of the federal government is national defense.

Lindsey Graham

#42. It's easy: if you want to grow the economy, encourage job creation, and increase federal revenue, you support making bonus depreciation permanent. Permanency gives job creators the certainty they need to plan and invest in their businesses, including hiring employees.

Pat Tiberi

#43. Drinking water that does not meet a federal health guideline will not necessarily make someone ill. Many contaminants are hazardous only if consumed for years. And some researchers argue that even toxic chemicals, when consumed at extremely low doses over long periods, pose few risks.

Charles Duhigg

#44. I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job because the benefits that they didn't work were better. I changed that.

George Pataki

#45. Today, the Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years. Let me repeat: The Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years.

Alcee Hastings

#46. Virginia and Maryland attorneys argued this is a national problem and needs a national solution. I'm hoping that with a federal court agreeing this is inequitable, Congress will now act and do the right thing for the District.

Walter Smith

#47. You have safety and soundness as primary purpose of the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the other agencies which control banking regulation.

Judd Gregg

#48. The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.

Alexander Hamilton

#49. Any Federal official, who engages in employment discrimination, lacks the moral integrity to evenhandedly enforce our Nation's laws or manage Federal programs.

Tanya Ward Jordan

#50. State and federal laws protect whistle-blowers, those who refuse to do something illegal, and workers who file claims for workers' compensation.

Bill Dedman

#51. Balance the federal budget now, not 15 years from now, not 20 years from now, but now. And throw out the entire federal tax system, replace it with a fair tax, a consumption tax, that by all measurements is just that. It's fair.

Gary Johnson

#52. We have people across this country who are scared to death. Because I could tell you this, as a former federal prosecutor, if a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, California, is now a target for terrorists, that means everywhere in America is a target for these terrorists.

Chris Christie

#53. We can adhere to the Henry Hyde amendment by saying that no federal funds will be used for abortions. And that's the bottom line for me.

Henry Cuellar

#54. Federal prosecutors want to indict Julian Assange for making public a great many classified documents.

Barton Gellman

#55. Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives.

Karl Rove

#56. There is so much chaos and dysfunction going on with the federal government that Dallas can't wait any longer for federal help.

Laura Miller

#57. The First Nations Financial Transparency Act insulted the integrity of the very people in our communities who guide our economic policy and act as our mediators with provincial and federal governments.

Eden Robinson

#58. We have a lot of things we give away to people who are very, very wealthy in this country. And I'm not sure that our federal government can afford that.

Claire McCaskill

#59. Stimulus spending, permanent bailouts, government takeovers, and federal mandates have all failed our nation. America's employers are afraid to invest in an economy racked with uncertainty over what Washington's next set of rules, regulations, mandates, and tax hikes will look like.

Geoff Davis

#60. I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.

Clint Eastwood

#61. Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high importance.

Andrew Jackson

#62. One of the specific powers and responsibilities of the federal government is to secure the borders. Property can be taken with due process of law and just compensation.

Ted Cruz

#63. We need to make clear the federal government does not have authority to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process or, for that matter, to use lethal force on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil if they don't pose imminent threats.

Ted Cruz

#64. I believe the people of Arizona and the people of America are fed up with the federal government. The bottom line is, is that they need to secure our borders. And in regards to Senate Bill 1070, what a disappointment! It hasn't been divisive; it has united Arizona! It has united America!

Jan Brewer

#65. The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level.

Sharron Angle

#66. I would pay to have those adjudications enrolled into the federal background system so we could detect people who are mentally ill before they buy a gun. That is a real problem.

Rand Paul

#67. Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.

Rand Paul

#68. The Federal Reserve has a responsibility to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and to contain systemic risks in financial markets.

Bernie Sanders

#69. I am designating a new Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers to cut through red tape and ensure that the full resources of our federal government are leveraged to assist the workers, communities, and regions that rely on our auto industry.

Barack Obama

#70. The CDC and the federal government have already admitted that they have failed to get ahead of the spread of Ebola in Texas, and we aren't going to let that happen in Florida.

Rick Scott

#71. The federal government needs to be scaled back to a size where he can personally stomp it to death with steel-toed boots.

Neal Stephenson

#72. The Federal Reserve was not founded to bail out Bear Stearns or a few hedge funds. It was founded to keep a stable currency and maintain its value.

Jim Rogers

#73. Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a felony from owning a gun. Seems like kind of a good idea, no?

Timothy Noah

#74. The fierce battles between New Democrat centrists and old-style liberals that defined the Democratic Party in the 1990s are long gone, with the party unified behind Barack Obama's economic agenda of universal health care, expensive federal programs and more regulation of the financial markets.

Nina Easton

#75. They appear to have had a higher voter turnout in Iraq than we did in our recent federal elections, and we didn't have terrorists threatening to kill our families if we voted.

Conrad Burns

#76. We have federal standards for everything in America except the one thing you need most - your health.

Steve Kagen

#77. If I have tried to bring anything to federal politics, it is the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart.

Jack Layton

#78. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

James Madison

#79. I wouldn't want the federal government dictating how I use my cameras, every community has their own issues and their own dynamics.

Kenneth R. Miller

#80. Leading from the front: It's what built America. But these days, the federal government isn't at the front - it's cowering in the back corner of the room, ducking responsibility and hoping no one notices.

Michael Bloomberg

#81. [The US] budget is dominated by the retirement programs, Social Security and Medicare - loosely speaking, the post-cold-war federal government is a big pension fund that also happens to have an army.

Paul Krugman

#82. If the fiscal cliff occurs, I don't think the Federal Reserve has the tools to offset that event.

Ben Bernanke

#83. Under Howard, federal government support for black Australia slowly dried up. Services were slashed, native title restricted.

Richard Flanagan

#84. Yet, individuals and corporations in Puerto Rico pay no federal income tax.

Dick Thornburgh

#85. I'm not the geek in the family: I'm the organizer. But what I do know is that we have a very terrific team of consultants, former federal cybersecurity experts who are working with us to make sure we have a very safe system.

Donna Brazile

#86. They [Federal Goverment] don't care if I am guilty or innocent. I serve their purpose in here. Other than what I have mentioned, what fear could they possibly have from a old man with dimming eyesight, arthritis, diabetes, and other health issues that render me hardly a threat to anyone.

Leonard Peltier

#87. It is proper that the federal government help alleviate short-term disruptions and price spikes such as those brought about by Hurricane Katrina.

Mel Martinez

#88. Especially today, given the tight fiscal situation that many States and localities face, the use of transportation facilities that pay for themselves without additional Federal funding is essential.

Michael Burgess

#89. We can't expect Wall Street to police itself - that's why we have a federal government.

Martin O'Malley

#90. My federal, state, and local experience will allow me the opportunity to effectively represent the constituents of the Fourth District.

Gloria Negrete McLeod

#91. Governor Kempthorne of Idaho, our chairman of the National Governors Association, is doing a great job bringing all of the nation's governors together to work as partners with the federal government.

James Douglas

#92. Now scarcely a week goes by without a news story about the cops swooping down on some adolescent prowler who is as skilled at breaking into computer systems as defense contractors are at breaking into the Federal budget.

Russell Baker

#93. So the idea that you could put Kurds, Shiite Arabs, and Sunni Arabs in a nice, liberal, federal system in Iraq in a short amount of time, six months or a year, boggles the mind.

William Odom

#94. For the last 50 years, the federal government has taken out of the Gulf Coast $165 billion in taxes that came from oil and gas off of our coast that went to the federal Treasury, to rebuild all places in America except the place that it came from.

Mary Landrieu

#95. The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it ... [I]f followed to its logical extreme, [this approach] would result in an unwarranted expansion of federal power.

Clarence Thomas

#96. This welfare for wealthy companies wastes taxpayer dollars, harms the environment, and makes a mockery of the recent reductions in federal social spending programs.

Ralph Nader

#97. The Federal Reserve - all of them - could be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, and then pouring gasoline on top of it, and then light a cigar with matches, throw the match into the gasoline, and then not notice that there is any danger.

Marc Faber

#98. Too many members of Congress believe they can solve all economic problems, cure all social ills, and bring about worldwide peace and prosperity simply by creating new federal programs.

Ron Paul

#99. I strongly believe that a federal structure based on administrative and geographic lines with strong powers for the federated states will be the best solution for Iraq.

Ahmed Chalabi

#100. We don't give federal grants to tobacco companies to teach students 'low-risk' forms of smoking on the grounds that 'kids are going to smoke anyway.' We shouldn't be giving federal grants to groups that sell contraception, to teach kids to use contraception.

Jennifer Morse