Quotes & Sayings About Government's Role

The problem isn't that conservatives are wrong about the efficiency of markets or the creativity of enterprise. It's that they have made false idols of both, usually without acknowledging that markets work best when well regulated, that private enterprise cannot meet every human need, that government has always played a critical role in our economy, and that the profit motive can be socially and environmentally destructive as well as dynamic. — Joe Conason

Government is inevitably going to play a very significant role in infrastructure, and in a country with a federal system where vibrancy and economic health depend on interstate commerce, it's not going to be private enterprise or state governments that will give you things like an interstate highway system. — Norman Ornstein

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

I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems ... This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system. — John McCain

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

Today's Republican Party ... is an insurgent outlier. It has become ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition, all but declaring war on the government. The Democratic Party, while no paragon of civic virtue, is more ideologically centered and diverse, protective of the government's role as it developed over the course of the last century, open to incremental changes in policy fashioned through bargaining with the Republicans, and less disposed to or adept at take-no-prisoners conflict between the parties. This asymmetry between the parties, which journalists and scholars often brush aside or whitewash in a quest for "balance," constitutes a huge obstacle to effective governance. — Thomas E. Mann

The role of the federal government is to protect our liberties. That means they should protect our religious liberties to do what we want; our intellectual liberty, but it also should protect our right to do to our body what we want, you know, what we take into our bodies. — Ron Paul

You don't have to be Dave Halberstam to see that the American role in both conflicts [the Iraq war and the Vietnam conflict] is characterized by arrogance, ignorance and self-delusion at the highest levels of government. — Jonathan Yardley

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

I believe, unlike people that are totally free-market, laissez-faire fundamentalists, that there is an important role that the government can play - one, in providing public goods, whether it's education, health care, or other things, and two, supervising countercyclical policy - stimulus, whether it's monetary, fiscal, or otherwise. — Nouriel Roubini

Government has the role of suiting people for freedom. People aren't made for freedom spontaneously. There's sort of a 19-year race between when people are born and when they become adults. And government has a role in making them, at the end of 19 years, suited to be upright, trustworthy repositories of popular sovereignty. — George Will

Millions of people around the world suffer daily from the harmful health and environmental impacts caused by indoor cooking fires and inefficient cookstoves. Together with the Global Alliance on Clean Cookstoves, we are taking action to address this critical problem and to promote a cleaner, healthier environment. I am pleased to celebrate the launch of this Alliance and proud to say that agencies from across the U.S. Federal Government will continue to play an important role in this initiative. — Nancy Sutley

What, on the eternal list of priorities, precedes health? What more obvious role could government have than the defense of the life, of each citizen? We cannot stop every germ that seeks to harm us any more than we can stop every person who seeks to harm us. But we can try dammit and government's essential role in that effort facilitate it, reduce its cost, broaden its availability, improve my health and yours, seems, ultimately, self-explanatory. — Keith Olbermann

While Christian nationalists very much want to see the Ten Commandments play a larger role in the United States, they - and the majority of Americans (60 percent) - cannot name even five of the Ten Commandments. Surprisingly, research revealed that only 60 percent of American adults could even identify "thou shalt not kill" as a commandment. Given this, it should not be surprising that most people do not realize the number of commandments that would create an exclusively Judeo-Christian orientation for the government, and that they constitute almost half of God's decrees from the Mount, making the wish for a biblical justice system less than promising for religious freedom in the United States. The goal of Christian nationalism is not religious freedom, however: It is Christian supremacy[....] — Elicka Peterson Sparks

No one suggested Lehman deserved to be saved. But the argument has been made that the crisis might have been less severe if it had been saved, because Lehman's failure created remarkable uncertainty in the market as investors became confused about the role of the government and whether it was picking winners and losers. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

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). — Dora J. Arod

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

The conservative idea is not that government has no role. You might have argued that in the thirties when conservatives opposed the New Deal. — Charles Krauthammer

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

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

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

Germany is a fascinating role model. The Germans have maintained their manufacturing edge despite being a high-tax, high-regulation economy. Why? Because the government really set about ensuring that it maintained funding for technical training, technical advancements and programs. It made a concerted effort to retain high-end, complex manufacturing
the kind of BMW model, if you will. And they've done that so successfully that Germany, which has a quarter of America's population, exports more than America does. — Fareed Zakaria

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately, the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government have become increasingly concerned with their image and their political parties, have drifted away from strict interpretations of the Constitution, and have substituted their own ideologies for the original vision. As a result, our government produces massively complicated taxation schemes, impossibly intricate and uninterpretable health care laws, and other intrusive measures instead of being a watchful guardian of our rights. Instead of providing an environment that allows diligent people to thrive on the basis of their own hard work and entrepreneurship, our government has taken on the role of trying to care for everyone's needs and redistributing the fruits of everyone's labors in a way consistent with its own ideology. — Ben Carson

Managing people's sex lives is something that I don't think is a good role for government. — William Weld

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

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

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

The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the nineteenth century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good. — Milton Friedman

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

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

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

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

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

Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy - in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that, in most cases, it's not government's role to be the primary dispenser of empathy. — Gary Bauer

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

I really think that people's right to happiness shouldn't be dictated by some policymaker in Washington, D.C. I've come to know a lot of people that - sexual orientation is such where they're in love with people from the same sex, and I just don't think it's our role in the government to say, 'No you can't be married.' — Jon Tester

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

As presidential authority expands, and the role of Congress diminishes, the American people continue to lose control over their government. Today's assertions of executive power are indeed a nightmare and Peter Shane's extremely readable and well-informed book describes this disturbing transformation in frightening detail. For anybody who cares about our constitutional system of protected liberties, this book is indispensable. I couldn't put it down and grew angrier, and more concerned, with every page. — Mickey Edwards

it's not the role of the government to solve all of our problems through legislation. Some problems cannot be cured through legislation. But they must be attended to nonetheless. And here's the problem: The less the culture attends to these things, the more the government will attend to them and the less freedom there will be. The greater the role the government plays, the more it crowds out the culture's role, the role of the people - and the true freedom of the people. The — Eric Metaxas

In pure Capitalism (never fully achieved even in America), the government's only role is to protect individual rights, property, and transactions from force or fraud by others via the police and/or courts and to protect the nation and its citizens against foreign aggression via the military. Period. As imperative as it is to understand morality, immorality, and amorality it is vital to understand that capitalism is the only social-political-economic-moral system that protects the individual from all force and fraud, including force or fraud from the government itself. — Alexandra York

It's the role of us to run our government, the government by the people, for the people, and I don't think our government is listening to the people. It's our role as patriots to question them, because we elected them. And if they're not fairly and accurately representing us, it's the job of the people, the patriots, to take their country back. — Maynard James Keenan

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

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

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

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

The problems that exist on Wall Street today go to the center of a debate in this country about wealth and democracy. We cannot keep our democracy if those who are in charge of handling the engines of our economy are not honest with their shareholders. That's why there is a role for government regulation here. That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated. — Dennis Kucinich

I had to sign the paper to shut down the government. It's terrible ... [But] what the shutdown showed many, many people is the importance of the role of government. And as frustrated [as people get with] Washington, there are so many things [the government does] that are so important to people's lives every day. The panda cam, paying small businesses their loans - these are all things that shut down. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

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

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

This bill would renounce the safe, proper, and acceptable role for Government as a referee of disputes between the governed. It would interpose the Government as a biased protagonist, armed with the awesome authority of the Federal Government, in addition to rulemaking and umpire powers. The broad grants of power to the Attorney General to initiate and intervene in civil actions would go far toward transforming him into George Orwell's 'Big Brother' of '1984,' in the year 1964. — Strom Thurmond

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

What civilization has done to women's bodies is no different than what it's done to the earth, to children, to the sick, to the proletariat; in short, to everything that isn't supposed to "talk," and in general to whatever the knowledge-powers of government and management don't want to hear, which is thus relegated to exclusion from all recognized activity, relegated to the role of a witness. — Tiqqun

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

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

It was all here for me, just as it has all been here for you, the best and the worst of Western Civilization, if you cared to pay attention: music, finance, government, architecture, law and sculpture and painting, history and medicine and athletics and every sort of science, and books, books, books, and teachers and role models.
People so smart you can't believe it, and people so dumb you can't believe it. People so nice you can't believe it, and people so mean you can't believe it. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

You can see where it's going. The extraordinary political apathy that followed Watergate and Vietnam and the institutionalization of grass-roots rebellion among minorities will only deepen. Politics is about consensus, and the advertising legacy of the sixties is that consensus is repression. Voting'll be unhip: Americans now vote with their wallets. Government's only cultural role will be as the tyrannical parent we both hate and need. Look for us to elect someone who can cast himself as a Rebel, maybe even a cowboy, but who deep down we'll know is a bureaucratic creature who'll operate inside the government mechanism instead of naively bang his head against it the way we've watched poor Jimmy do for four years. — David Foster Wallace

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

I am a very, very strong advocate of the notion that we shouldn't equate the arts with other aspects of infrastructure. They have a unique role in any civilised society and that requires appropriate and targeted government support. — George Brandis

The Harper Government is committed to ensuring that seniors have the skills they need to make solid financial choices. Seniors today face an increasingly complex financial marketplace, and it will take the combined efforts of public and private sector organizations to help seniors navigate the many financial choices they face. The start of Financial Literacy Month is an excellent opportunity to thank the Canadian Bankers Association and encourage other private sector organizations to take an active role in providing financial literacy support to Canada's seniors. — Kevin Sorenson

If we are going to realise our ambition of ending the harmful practices of FGM and forced marriage, the role of young people in pushing for change is crucial. We also need to ensure that everyone, from government to civil society, is playing their part. — Theresa May

Religious freedom is often referred to as America's first freedom. Our country was founded by religious exiles and built on the belief that God has given all people certain inalienable rights. Government's role in society is to protect these rights and ensure that we are safe from religious persecution and discrimination. — Marco Rubio

Since all human governments, like all human individuals, are subject to temptation, especially the temptation to use this God-given role for their own ends, there must be clear and wise critique, and holding to account. — N. T. Wright

Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role. — Edward Abbey

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

The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount role assigned to the army within the political structure. Even in peacetime the army is supreme; it is the predominant factor in political life. The subjects must obey the government as soldiers must obey their superiors. Within a militarist community there is no freedom; there are only obedience and discipline. — Ludwig Von Mises

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

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

Strengthening the role the United Nations can play ... will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives. — Maurice Strong

Current public diplomacy and foreign policy making reduces the role of American citizens to mere spectators. The USIA's model of democracy and the free market is promoted as the superpower version of economic globalization, packaged and ready for shipping to clients throughout the world. In this version, foreign capital flows freely while the movement of people, particularly the world's poor, is strictly controlled. Such a commercial package speaks first and foremost for government 'partners,' the Fortune 500 corporations, which are the primary beneficiaries as well as the bankrollers of the American political process. This is a packaged story of America that is incomplete and undemocratic. Where do workers and communities fit into the story? How do private citizens play a part in building dialogue across cultures? — Nancy Snow

In most cases, obviously, soldiers fought because a government drafted them and gave them a rifle. At every point too, we see the role of nationalistic sentiment, commercial rivalries, and simple greed. But can we ever separate out such motives from the religious? Was that not also true of the medieval crusades? — Philip Jenkins

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

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

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

Government has a role as well in what is referred to as redistributive justice. — William Weld

There are certain basic principles regarding the proper role of government. If principles are correct, then they can be applied to any specific proposal with confidence ... The true statesman values principle above popularity, and works to create popularity for those political principles which are wise and just. — Ezra Taft Benson

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since 2001, the U.S. government has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights and has perpetrated terrible and illegal abuses in prisons in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, sent prisoners secretly to other nations to be tortured, denied the applicability of the Geneva Convention restraints, and severely restricted time-honored civil liberties within our own country. Certain political leaders of other nations, who are inclined to perpetrate human rights abuses to quiet dissenting voices and were previously restrained by positive influence from Washington, now feel free to emulate or exceed the abuses approved by American leaders. — Jimmy Carter

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

When you were growing up, your mom and dad told you to look both ways before crossing the street or not to get into a car with a stranger. It's the same with the Internet. We have a big responsibility and a huge role in bringing all the stakeholders to the table - users, parents, educators, law enforcement, government organisations. — Chris DeWolfe

Are you afraid that you're hurting your national auto industry? - Environmental protection isn't a burden. It's innovation. Protecting a backward industry is no way to promote innovation. The government's role is to set standards and then ensure fair competition in the market. You win the market through fair competition. — Chai Jing

The federal government's role is to establish a process whereby industry can pitch a project, and Canadians can be reassured that this project is worth the risk. That's at the heart of governments granting permits and communities granting permission. People understand we do need economic growth. We do need natural resource projects. — Justin Trudeau

And government's only role is to secure our rights for us. — Roy Moore

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

The primary factor that enables our government to peddle economic snake oil is the dollar's unique role as the world's reserve currency, and our creditors' willingness to preserve its status. By buying up dollars and loaning them back to us through Treasury debt, productive countries give American politicians cart blanche to play Santa Claus. — Peter Schiff

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

A less well known impact of immigrant populations is the increase that destination states gain in Congress where apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives is calculated on the basis of a state's entire adult population regardless of legal status. And, because each state's electoral college vote is the sum of the number of its representatives in the House and its two senators, high immigration states play a larger role in presidential elections than they might if only adult citizens and legal aliens were counted in population surveys. — Edward S. Greenberg

What exactly was the role of the U.S. government in the coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem?" Trumbull stared for a moment at Foley's rigid back. Then he said to Patchen, "Tell him." "I think you already know, Paul," Patchen said. "In simple terms, we countenanced it. We knew it was being planned. We offered advice. We provided support. We encouraged the plot. We welcomed the results. — Charles McCarry

Is the American tradition of self-reliance disappearing? That's a painful question for conservatives to ponder. After all, we're dedicated to reducing the role of government and promoting individual freedom and opportunity. But the facts, while sad, are clear: More Americans today depend more heavily on government than ever before. — Edwin Feulner

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

I think we'll have a bigger conversation first within the Republican Party, then with the American people about what's the proper role of the federal government, i do hope that Common Core will be one more, one more reason for us to have this bigger debate, this bigger conversation about the proper role of the federal government in local education. — Bobby Jindal

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