Quotes About Government Functions

#1. If children do not understand the Constitution, they cannot understand how our government functions, or what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens of the United States.

John Roberts

#2. No government functions without the grease of corruption.

Carlos Fuentes

#3. Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.

Edward Snowden

#4. As more government functions are privatized, we find political leaders defunding the public school system, shifting government funds to the private, for-profit school industry.

Hank Johnson

#5. A certain amount of taxes is of course indispensable to carry on essential government functions. Reasonable taxes for this purpose need not hurt production much.

Henry Hazlitt

#6. The United States will continue to be number one, and I do not see any country or group of countries taking the United States' place in providing global public goods that underpin security and prosperity. The United States functions as the world's de facto government.

Michael Mandelbaum

#7. What I have said is that I think the federal government and we as a society have come too far in trying to separate good organizations that perform good functions for people just based on the fact one has a religious association and one doesn't.

Ken Buck

#8. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.

Ayn Rand

#9. For some in Washington, it's become sport to pick on the federal workforce. I think they do so unjustly. The very foundation of a stable America is having a government that functions well. Many countries have dysfunctional governments, because they don't have a good government workforce.

Ken Salazar

#10. That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.

Ezra Taft Benson

#11. I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions.

Muhammad Yunus

#12. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address.

Michael Moore

#13. When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty.

Naomi Klein

#14. A leader has to know how the system functions - not just the system of government but the whole social and economic system, including business, the unions, and the universities.

Jean Chretien

#15. To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.

Henry George

#16. Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.

Robert M. Pirsig

#17. The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people.

Grover Cleveland

#18. For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.

Sandra Day O'Connor

#19. The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government.

Barry Goldwater

#20. The people are the best guardians of their own rights and it is the duty of their executive to abstain from interfering in or thwarting the sacred exercise of the lawmaking functions of their government.

William Henry Harrison

#21. I believe the public's confidence would be increased if the federal government took over the functions of airport security screening for all passengers.

David Neeleman

#22. The government's only functions are to protect the rights of the individual; therefore, you need a police force and an army.

Neil Peart

#23. It is not part of the functions of the national government to find employment for people and if we were to appropriate a hundred millions for this purpose, we should be taxing forty millions of people to keep a few thousand employed.

James A. Garfield

#24. The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.

Milton Friedman

#25. One of the functions of government is to act as a safeguard not just of property but of our liberties.

William Weld

#26. It is an in, a grave evil and a disturbance of the right order, for a larger and higher organisation, to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.

Pope Leo XIII

#27. To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government
as a barrier against foreign foes ... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.

Thomas Jefferson

#28. What would happen to the individual if all the functions of the body were placed under the control of the consciousness is what would happen to a nation in which all individual activities were directed by government.

Henry George

#29. In my judgment, while it is the duty of Congress to respect to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen ... not any ecclesiastical organization can be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the national government.

James A. Garfield

#30. A state that privatizes most of its functions will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries

Philip Bobbitt

#31. Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It's the system that functions in the pinches that survive

John F. Kennedy

#32. I found that I was getting a warm reception for my message of freeing you from the income tax, releasing you from Social Security, ending the insane war on drugs, restoring gun rights, and reducing the federal government to just its constitutional functions.

Harry Browne