Quotes On Government's Role

#1. Each of us should take personal responsibility for our diet, and our children's diet, and the government's role should be to make certain it provides the best information possible to help people stay healthy.

Jim Talent

#2. Conventional wisdom on government's role in inequality often has it backwards. Tax reforms have resulted in a more progressive federal income tax; government transfer payments have become less progressive.

Paul Ryan

#3. My concept of government's role in people's lives is that it is limited but legitimate, and essential when people have nowhere else to turn.

Olympia Snowe

#4. As President Bush has said on numerous occasions, it is the government's role to create the conditions, the friendly environment, that will attract capital.

Donald Evans

#5. Government's role should be only to keep the playing field level, and to work hand in hand with business on issues such as employment. But beyond this, to as great an extent as possible, it should get the hell out of the way.

Jesse Ventura

#6. Do we believe that the goal of government is to promote equal opportunity for all Americans to make the most of their lives? Or, do we now believe that government's role is to equalize the results of peoples lives?

Paul Ryan

#7. I happen to agree with many of the liberal emphasis on compassion, justice and equality. I just disagree that it's the government's role to provide everything.

Rick Warren

#8. Bush always has viewed himself as an "activist," which flies in the face of some conservative notions, such as the federal government's role in education.

Robert Draper

#9. How much further beyond basic research the role of the government should be, you could have a really good debate about it. Almost nobody would say it's zero. But that's where at least we need the private sector to play a big role.

Bill Gates

#10. The role of government is to create responsible greed to keep boundaries around what people do.

Rebecca M. Blank

#11. I would wager that my job has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism. I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.

Roy Spencer

#12. We need a liberal agenda in which government resists the temptation to interfere in the lives of individuals but is equally determined to play an active role where creative action can advance the liberties of all.

Charles Kennedy

#13. Governments should be role models of leadership and improve the utilization of ICT in all the governmental departments in order to improve the efficiency of governmental services and motivate ICT industries.

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

#14. The primary role of the church is to reflect God's value system in society and to train people in that value system. It's not the government's responsibility, nor are they equipped to do that on the most local level where the need exists.

Tony Evans

#15. American social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies.

Tony Judt

#16. I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that.

Alberto Gonzales

#17. To suggest that Quebecers willingly give up the chance to exercise fully their influence within the federal government would be to betray the historical role Quebec has always played in Confederation, and to undermine the legitimacy of their pride and ambitions.

Kim Campbell

#18. I looked at No Child Left Behind after it was enacted and saw what happened and saw the expansion of the federal government and the role of education. And I said, you know, that was - that's not what I believe in.

Rick Santorum

#19. I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war.

Orson Scott Card

#20. The National Security Council's real role is to coordinate the various activities of the government of the United States in the furtherance of American foreign policy.

Oliver North

#21. The growing role that the government has played in financing and administering schooling has led not only the enormous waste of taxpayers money but also to a far poorer educational system.

Milton Friedman

#22. The country was founded on the principle that primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains.

Noam Chomsky

#23. This is bizarre," I say.
"I think it's beautiful," he says.
I give him a look.
"What?" He laughs a little. "They each have an equal role in government; they each feel equally responsible. And it makes them care; it makes them kind. I think that's beautiful.

Veronica Roth

#24. Conservatives want smaller government. They want to focus on market-based solutions wherever one can. They want to have as little regulation as possible. But in general, they recognize that government must play an important role for a society to operate.

Norman Ornstein

#25. I believe the role of government is to stand side by side with our citizens to help them realize their dreams, not tell citizens how to live their lives.

George W. Bush

#26. I look forward to doing everything I can in my new role to help bring more and more of the best talent and best ideas from Silicon Valley and across the nation into government.

Todd Park

#27. The Constitution limits the role of government. The Constitution enumerates the freedoms of the people and enforces those freedoms against government, making sure government cannot encroach.

Rush Limbaugh

#28. It's a sense in Minnesota that we need to get back to common sense. We need to get back to taking sensible looks at positions and understanding the proper role of government.

Pete Hegseth

#29. I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire.

Vince Cable

#30. The preservation of biodiversity is not just a job for governments. International and non-governmental organisations, the private sector and each and every individual have a role to play in changing entrenched outlooks and ending destructive patterns of behaviour

Kofi Annan

#31. The Australian Government's decision to take on the dominant funding role for the entire public hospital system is designed to: end the blame game; eliminate waste; and to shoulder the funding burden of the rapidly rising health costs of the future.

Kevin Rudd

#32. And government's only role is to secure our rights for us.

Roy Moore

#33. The purpose of the right to bear arms is twofold; to allow individuals to protect themselves and their families, and to ensure a body of armed citizenry from which a militia could be drawn, whether that militia's role was to protect the nation, or to protect the people from a tyrannical government.

Glenn Reynolds

#34. A corporation's primary goal is to make money. Government's primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.

Larry Ellison

#35. And I don't think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there's another set of moral codes, but I don't think government has a role.

Clarence Thomas

#36. Children's lives are not shaped solely by their families or immediate surroundings at large. That is why we must avoid the false dichotomy that says only government or only family is responsible ... Personal values and national policies must both play a role.

Hillary Clinton

#37. I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president. But I also feel it's the role of the Congress and the president to push back. I mean I think it's important that they are understood as equal branches of government.

Rick Santorum

#38. To me, that's the role of government: not to give people a hand out, but a hand up ... giving people the tools to pave their own way to success.

James Langevin

#39. While many of Mr. Obama's ideas warrant skepticism, conservative opposition to any expanded role for government is a mistake.

Paul Singer

#40. I think, though, if I had to look at the role of government and what it does in people's lives, I see the EEOC as having much more legitimacy than the others, if properly run.

Clarence Thomas

#41. Each of us has a vital role to play in building a world in which the government and technology serve the world's people and not the other way around.

Rebecca MacKinnon

#42. The FHA's success provides strong evidence that government can and should play a role in the nation's mortgage finance system. It also demonstrates that although government intervention in the economy during the Great Recession was messy, things would have been a lot messier without it.

Mark Zandi

#43. That's the part where the governments have a unique role, and then when it progresses well enough, then existing companies or new startup companies should take it. In the $3 trillion a year energy market, the rewards will be quite fantastic.

Bill Gates

#44. See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.

Milton Friedman

#45. Part of my role, I suppose, is to run government business in the House of Representatives, and try to ensure that people know exactly what's going on in the Chamber is an important part of that.

Tony Abbott

#46. I thought it was interesting to see that Israel did not play a role in this revolution. The man on Cairo's Tahrir Square doesn't want anything from me, but he does want something from his government. That's a good sign.

Tom Segev

#47. You can't fall back on the private sector and say, 'You take care of the nation's banking system.' That's a fundamental function of the government, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the FDIC, etc. All of those agencies have a major role to play there.

Dick Cheney

#48. Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

Jim Wallis

#49. Managing people's sex lives is something that I don't think is a good role for government.

William Weld

#50. I see the role of IT as a change agent. It empowers, connects and can bind isolated parts of India and create harmony. IT can join people with governments, bridge the gap between demand and supply, and can bring us closer to knowledge.

Narendra Modi

#51. The role of the press and the protections which we afford it are today more important than ever before, because we dwell in a society where belief in our governments and in the strength of our institutions is declining.

Rose Bird

#52. And the issues I think are important in Louisiana right now happen to be health care and education. And those are two areas that the federal government can play a very important role. And I think I can be effective in trying to help our state from the Washington scene.

John Breaux

#53. We are a religious nation because we do not have a state religion, because the government guarantees freedom of religion but has no role in religion, because not only do we tolerate our religious differences, we celebrate them.

Geraldine Ferraro

#54. The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, all the regulator agencies - if there's a problem of the financial mechanism in society, the only one to fix it is government. They've got a legitimate role.

Dick Cheney

#55. I'm not against the government. I'm against this ever-expanding government that doesn't know its limits. And that's how I see the role of the attorney general, as someone in an office that can protect you and defend the Constitution and defend state sovereignty and our individual liberty.

Alan Wilson

#56. I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

Al Franken

#57. Scn is like HIV. Gets in there and screws up the immune system, perverts the law to its own ends. Forget government taking the lead role in bringing down scn, that task falls to you and me.

Keith Henson

#58. I think government has a major role to play in helping us with the pursuit of happiness.

William Weld

#59. I want to make clear that we respect the role of government in our legal andeconomic system.

Bill Gates

#60. The upbeat DHS report was some kind of high-water mark for government gall - a tough record to beat. After sitting back and watching the Cabal do all the work, and nearly succeed, Uncle Sam finally found a role for himself: proclaim victory and then stick a flag in it!

Mark Bowden

#61. I will continue to advocate for a strong federal government role to establish the production, storage and distribution networks needed to support a hydrogen economy.

Albert Wynn

#62. The primary role of professional societies is the lobbying of the government for special advantage

Richard Lindzen

#63. From the ashes of the Triangle Company fire began to rise one of the most dramatic and far-reaching [changes] in American history-one that would...eventually redefine forever the role the government played in the lives of ordinary people.

Ric Burns

#64. The labour of the farmers, no doubt is of greater value than the financial capacity of the government and non-government institutions which can only play a supportive role.

Girma Woldegiorgis

#65. If you think of global public goods like polio eradication, the kind of risk-taking new approach, philanthropy really does have a role to play there, because government doesn't do R&D about new things naturally as much as it probably should, and so philanthropy's there.

Bill Gates

#66. You have to have a government that does give both money and energy to function in a leadership role modeling giving for the people. Government is supposed to lead by example in many cases.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

#67. Because there are no local or State boundaries to the problems of our environment, the Federal Government must play an active, positive role. We can and will set standards. We can and will exercise leadership.

Richard M. Nixon

#68. Government should allow people to go out and do the things Americans have always done, create jobs and prosperity. And America's role in the world - the world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest country in the world.

Marco Rubio

#69. Military activities (are) not a role for the United States. There needs to be a number of steps that Maliki and his government must take to demonstrate that he is committed to an inclusive Iraq, something he has not done up to date.

Hillary Clinton

#70. Faced with a deep recession, some say the answer is to expand the role of government.

Rick Scott

#71. Dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms ... one man was the government of the United States ... Lincoln was a great dictator ... This great constitutional dictator was self appointed.

Clinton Rossiter

#72. We believe that in times like these we should turn to each other, not on each other. We believe that government has a role to play, not in solving every problem in everybody's life but in helping people help themselves to the American dream. That's what Democrats believe.

Deval Patrick

#73. The role of government is to steer us in the right direction, not do all the work for us.

Joe Lhota

#74. Anyone who believes in the essential role government can play in improving people's lives must also be the toughest critics of those who abuse the public trust.

Eric Schneiderman

#75. Despite the enormous role that local government plays in our daily lives, the constitution makes not one mention of it.

Anthony Albanese

#76. I believe that smaller government is better government. But I also believe that in the areas where government does play a legitimate role, we should demand that it is done better.

Scott Walker

#77. I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government.

Milton Friedman

#78. There's a big difference between the role of an academic and the role of someone in government. That's a cliche, but in academic life if you say things that are common sense and people nod their heads, it's not very useful. You're not adding anything.

Cass Sunstein

#79. Research is one of the Nation's very greatest resources and the role of the Federal Government in supporting and stimulating it needs to reexamined.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#80. Mr. Obama is proud of his belief that government knows best. When he told the world that individuals were not totally responsible for their personal success, that government has a major role in it, many Americans were taken aback. But Barack Obama sincerely believes that.

Bill O'Reilly

#81. I don't believe newspaper reporters can substitute for a district attorney, but a newspaper has a very valid investigative role. Newspaper reports on corruption in government, racketeering and organized crime conditions can be very helpful to your communities and the whole country.

Robert Kennedy

#82. As Americans, we don't see the role of government as guaranteeing outcomes, but allowing free men and women to flourish based on their own vision, their hard work and their personal responsibility.

Rick Perry

#83. I've experienced first-hand the wonderful work organizations like J Bar J do for young people in Central Oregon and I am encouraged that the federal government is taking an active role in the Cascade Youth and Family Center.

Greg Walden

#84. The importance of the Bible to a church is to keep the church on track. The role of the Constitution in government is to keep the government on track.

Ted Haggard

#85. There's room in the Republican Party for anyone who wants to be a part of the values that we espouse when it comes to the role of government, free enterprise, free markets.

Michael Steele

#86. The role of the federal government should be neutral toward culture just as it is toward religion.

Preston Manning

#87. The Supreme Court and courts in general have been usurping the role of the legislative branch of government.

Todd Akin

#88. Finally, let's keep well in mind the most important lesson of the auto rescue: While government should stay away from the private sector as much as possible, markets do occasionally fail, and when they do government can play a constructive role, as it did in the case of the auto rescue.

Steven Rattner

#89. When it comes to the big issues like immigration, everyone has a role. The government has a role. The church has a role. Every Christian has a role.

Shane Claiborne

#90. The Conservative party is at its strongest when it's not the party that says there is no role for government and the state should just get out of the way. That is not a strand of Conservative thinking that, by itself, is enough.

George Osborne

#91. It is not the role of government to use the taxation and welfare system as a tool to level the playing field.

Joe Hockey

#92. What do you think the appropriate role of government is in society? The way I look at this job is, you want me to do X? Well, is the private sector doing X with any kind of success? Because if they are, I'd rather have them do it than have us do it.

Chris Christie

#93. I think there are people in this Congress who actually believe that government does not have a benign role in the lives of the people, except as an engine to redistribute the wealth of the Nation upwards.

Dennis Kucinich

#94. We will not support returning Fannie and Freddie to the role they played before conservatorship, where they fought to take market share from private competitors while enjoying the privilege of government support.

Timothy Geithner

#95. Solidarity and interdependence, a sense of worth, a pride and hope in the future: these are positive gains for those who believe in progressive politics and the beneficial role of government, rather than a detriment.

David Blunkett

#96. A leader - whether in the home, church, business, community, or government - has authority due to her role, but her positional power will not bring about good for individuals or organizations unless it is backed up by the capital of character.

Dan B. Allender

#97. Because many of us make mistakes that can have bad consequences, some intellectuals believe that it is the role of government to intervene and make some of our decisions for us. From what galaxy government is going to hire creatures who do not make mistakes is a question they leave unanswered.

Thomas Sowell

#98. A healthy society rests on three pillars: business, government and civil society, or non-profits. Each has a distinct and important role to play, and all three need to work together synergistically to create the most value for society.

John Mackey

#99. I'm not here today to tell you government doesn't have a role to play. It does, but it needs to be the right role.

Rob Portman

#100. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you.

George W. Bush