Big Government Quotes

1. "My advice to the tea party freshmen: Slow the galloping horses to a trot. Big government was built over decades; it can't be dismantled in a year, especially when Democrats control the White House."
Author: Ari Fleischer

2. "While big corporations make huge, tax-free profits, taxes for the everyday working person skyrocket. While politicians take free trips around the world, those same politicians cut back food stamps for the poor. While politicians increase their salaries, millions of people are being laid off. This city is on the brink of bankruptcy, and yet hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on this trial. I do not understand a government so willing to spend millions of dollars on arms, to explore outer space, even the planet Jupiter, and at the same time close down day care centers and fire stations."
Author: Assata Shakur

3. "The Obama presidency, and liberalism in general, are based on not trusting the American people - a belief that big government is better for people."
Author: Bobby Jindal

4. "The other day, one of the big shots was trying to say ‘Nice shoes!' and he accidentally told a government minister that his face looked like a butt wart. Not good."
Author: Carl Hiaasen

5. "We live in an adolescent society, Neverland, where never growing up seems more the norm than the exception. Little boys wearing expensive suits and adult bodies should not be allowed to run big corporations. They shouldn't be allowed to run governments, armies, religions, small businesses and charities either and just quietly, they make pretty shabby husbands and fathers too. Mankind has become Pankind and whilst "lost boys" abound, there is also an alarming increase in the number of "lost girls."
Author: Daniel Prokop

6. "If right and left are competing to be the biggest victim, who is competing to be the government?"
Author: David Frum

7. "Pure, hard-core liberals believe in a superior race. They think they're it. They believe they're more intelligent than the general run of mankind, better suited than the little people are to manage the little people's lives. They think they have the one true vision, the ability to solve all the moral dilemmas of the century. They prefer big government because that is the first step to totalitarianism, toward unquestioned rule by the elite. And of course they see themselves as the elite."
Author: Dean Koontz

8. "If we continue on the present course, with big foundations and the federal government investing heavily in opening more charter schools, the result is predictable. Charter schools in urban centers will enroll the motivated children of the poor, while the regular public schools will become schools of last resort for those who never applied or were rejected."
Author: Diane Ravitch

9. "This book (Jarod Kintz's book) is trash. I mean, I assume it is, because that's where I found it while scrounging for lunch. However, I must admit that I haven't read it. I would have, but I am homeless, mainly due to my illiteracy (though Big Government, Keynesian monetary policy, and my struggle with alcoholism certainly played a large role)."
Author: Dora J. Arod

10. "The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening the opportunities and what Amartya Sen calls the 'capabilities' of all through collective action. But that means, it must mean, public non-profit initiative, even if only in redistributing private accumulation. Public decisions aimed at collective social improvement from which all human lives should gain. That is the basis of progressive policy—not maximising economic growth and personal incomes. Nowhere will this be more important than in tackling the greatest problem facing us this century, the environmental crisis. Whatever ideological logo we choose for it, it will mean a major shift away from the free market and towards public action, a bigger shift than the British government has yet envisaged. And, given the acuteness of the economic crisis, probably a fairly rapid shift. Time is not on our side."
Author: Eric J. Hobsbawm

11. "Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner."
Author: Frank Herbert

12. "Big-government proponents embrace both the power of the federal government and the idea that millions of Americans ought to be dependent on its largesse. It's time to return to our Founders' love for small government. More is not always better."
Author: Gary Bauer

13. "Deregulation is a transfer of power from the trodden to the treading. It is unsurprising that all conservative parties claim to hate big government."
Author: George Monbiot

14. "I told [Hu Jintao] I stayed awake worrying about another terrorist attack on America. He quickly replied that his biggest concern was creating twenty-five million new jobs a year. I found his answer fascinating, It was honest. It showed he worried about the impact of disaffected, unemployed masses. It explained his government's policies in resource-rich places like Iran and Africa. And it was a signal that he was a practical leader focused inward, not an ideologue likely to stir up trouble abroad."
Author: George W. Bush

15. "We should reject big government and look inside ourselves for all the things that built this country into what it was."
Author: Glenn Beck

16. "People should be free, people should be unencumbered by regulation as much as possible, that big government always goes corrupt and the truth shall always set you free."
Author: Glenn Beck

17. "The real issue for the public is to figure out which narrative do we want. We can have a bigger government, if that's the public's choice. It'll just require higher taxes on every American. Do you want that, or do you want smaller government, smaller taxes?"
Author: Glenn Hubbard

18. "But I'm a big believer that government does not have a monopoly on good ideas."
Author: Jack Markell

19. "Funding for the Special Operations Network comes directly from the government. Most work is centralized, but all of the SpecOps divisions have local representatives to keep a watchful eye on any provincial problems. They are administered by local commanders, who liaise with the national offices for information exchange, guidance and policy decisions. Like any other big government department, it looks good on paper but is an utter shambles. Petty infighting and political agendas, arrogance and sheer bloody-mindedness almost guarantees that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing."
Author: Jasper Fforde

20. "Love is by far bigger than the government can ever be."
Author: Jesse Ventura

21. "Populism is not a style, it's a people's rebellion against the iron grip that big corporations have on our country - including our economy, government, media, and environment."
Author: Jim Hightower

22. "If you like big government, move to Massachusetts."
Author: Joe Miller

23. "As the contest proceeded, public interest increased and the entire country watched to see which company would win the big government subsidies through the mountains."
Author: John Moody

24. "It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that is was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject."
Author: Joseph Story

25. "Liberals are wrong to think that opposition to health reform is a rejection of big government. If health reform consisted of extending Medicare to everyone, people would be delighted. There are millions of 64-year-olds out there who can hardly wait to be 65."
Author: Marcia Angell

26. "For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for."
Author: Marco Rubio

27. "The opposite of Big Government is not small government, but Big Liberty."
Author: Mark Steyn

28. "...small government gives you big freedoms--and Big Government leaves you with very little freedom. The opposite of Big Government is not small government, but Big Liberty. The bailout and the stimulus and the budget and the trillion-dollar deficits are not merely massive transfers from the most dynamic and productive sector to the least dynamic and productive. When governments annex a huge chunk of the economy, they also annex a huge chunk of individual liberty. You fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state into something closer to that of junkie and pusher--and you make it very difficult ever to change back."
Author: Mark Steyn

29. "The progressive Left can be in favor of Big Government or population control but not both. The mutual incompatibility is about to plunge Europe into societal collapse. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital - and that's before anyone invented unsustainable welfare systems."
Author: Mark Steyn

30. "After adding trillions to the debt on big-government policies most Americans didn't ask for and which we couldn't afford, Democratic leaders say they need more money, which they intend to take from small business, even though small businesses create the majority of new jobs."
Author: Mitch McConnell

31. "Obama believes in a big central government, where the federal government controls everything in our lives. That's socialism."
Author: Paul Broun

32. "Big-government economics breeds crony capitalism. It's corrupt, anything but neutral, and a barrier to broad participation in prosperity."
Author: Paul Ryan

33. "If you look at what is happening in Republican conventions across the country, they are energized. And the message is really the same - that is, big government is a problem, spending is a problem."
Author: Pete Sessions

34. "The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn."
Author: Peter Hain

35. "There are more effective ways of tackling environmental problems including global warming, proliferation of plastics, urban sprawl, and the loss of biodiversity than by treaties, top-down regulations, and other approaches offered by big governments and their dependents."
Author: Preston Manning

36. "Our citizens are tired of big government raising their taxes and cooking up new ways to micromanage their lives, our citizens are tired of big government killing jobs with their do-gooder policies. In short the people are Fed Up!"
Author: Rick Perry

37. "A 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."
Author: Robert Reich

38. "And the whole mess had been made possible by middle America's relentless appetite— for bigger houses, bigger portfolios, bigger government programs, bigger everything, and damn the long-term cost."
Author: Ross Douthat

39. "I promised to empower the taxpayer - instead of a handful of big government union bosses."
Author: Scott Walker

40. "I actually don't believe in big government, and half the time I'm never quite sure I believe in government, generally."
Author: Sebastian Coe

41. "It's businesses versus big government. We don't need big government. We need a more efficient, lean government, and that's exactly the kind of government we intend to deliver."
Author: Sher Valenzuela

42. "Big government conservatives are spending trillions and wasting billions. Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal conservancy, but the party of runaway spending and corruption."
Author: Sherrod Brown

43. "We must guard against the overreaching hand of big government trying to take away our freedom. And we must always protect the environment in a manner consistent with our values."
Author: Steve Forbes

44. "The public has a short memory. That's why all these big stars do these crazy, terrible things and two years later they're back in the biz, you know. 'Cause the public has a short memory. Let me give you a little test, okay? This is my thesis -- the public has a short memory and, like-- How many people remember, a couple of years ago, when the Earth blew up? How many people? See? So few people remember. And you would think that something like that, people would remember. But NOOO! You don't remember that? The Earth blew up and was completely destroyed? And we escaped to this planet on the giant Space Ark? Where have you people been? And the government decided not to tell the stupider people 'cause they thought that it might affect-- [dawning realization, looks around] Ohhhh! Okay! Uh, let's move on!"
Author: Steve Martin

45. "If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society."
Author: Strom Thurmond

46. "It's that big guy who's the government."
Author: Victor Hugo

47. "He soon decided that almost any fact could be accepted calmly after it had already happened. Men would be just as calm after their cities had been reduced to rubble. The human capacity for calmness was almost unlimited, ex post facto, because the routine of daily living had to go on, despite the big business of governments whose leaders invoked the Deity in the cause of slaughter."
Author: Walter M. Miller Jr.

48. "Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government."
Author: Wendell Phillips

49. "Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order [...] and the like."
Author: William O. Douglas

50. "You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for wealth creation"
Author: Ziad K. Abdelnour

Big Government Quotes Pictures