Ronald Reagan Government Quotations

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

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.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer, just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals . . . The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom, and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Someone once said that every form of government has one characteristic peculiar to it and if that characteristic is lost, the government will fall. In a monarchy, it is affection and respect for the royal family. If that is lost the monarch is lost. In a dictatorship, it is fear. If the people stop fearing the dictator he'll lose power. In a representative government such as ours, it is virtue. If virtue goes, the government fails. Are we choosing paths that are politically expedient and morally questionable? Are we in truth losing our virtue? . . . If so, we may be nearer the dustbin of history than we realize.

Many Americans today, just as they did 200 years ago, feel burdened, stifled, and sometimes even oppressed by government that has grown too large, too bureaucratic, too wasteful, too unresponsive, too uncaring about people and their problems. I believe we can embark on a new age of reform in this country and an era of national renewal, an era that will reorder the relationship between citizen and government, that will make government again responsive to people, that will revitalize the values of family, work, and neighborhood and that will restore our private and independent social institutions.

It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. This Administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy.

My belief has always been . . . that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government -- at point of bayonet if necessary -- to restore that individual's constitutional rights.

We must not look to government to solve our problems. Government is the problem.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

The more government takes in taxes, the less incentive people have to work. What coal miner or assembly-line worker jumps at the offer of overtime when he knows Uncle Sam is going to take 60 percent or more of his extra pay?

In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem

The most terrifying words in the English langauge are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. (October 27, 1964)

I consider all proposals for government action with an open mind before voting "no.

Government growing beyond our consent had become a lumbering giant, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom. What brought America back? The American people brought us back -- with quiet courage and common sense; with undying faith that in this nation under God the future will be ours, for the future belongs to the free.

Government has laid its hand on health, housing, farming, industry, commerce, education, and to an ever-increasing degree interferes with the people's right to know. Government tends to grow, government programs take on weight and momentum as public servants say, always with the best of intentions. But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector of the economy.

Government is bad when it takes more than 30 percent of a taxpayer's income in taxes. Proudhon was wrong when he said property is theft; it's our federal budget that is institutionalized theft.

I know I'm not in government anymore. In fact I'm out of work.

Simple fairness dictates that government must not raise taxes on families struggling to pay their bills.

This is not to say that the government should confiscate from the "haves" and bestow upon the "have-nots", beyond the requirements of a compassionate welfare program to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. Far from it. But it is to say that our duty is to foster a strong, vibrant wealth-producing economy which operates in such a way that new additions to wealth accrue to those who presently have little or no ownership stake in their country.

Almost all the worlds' constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which We the People tell the government what it is allowed to do. We the People are free.

Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control---all of which led us to this state in the first place... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people.

Why should the government subsidize intellectual curiosity?

This administration is totally colorblind.

Democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating.

If we don't want to see the map of Central America covered in a sea of red, eventually lapping at our own borders, we must act now.

I have come to the conclusion that the 22nd Amendment [limiting the presidency to two terms] was a mistake. Shouldn't the people have the right to vote for someone as many times as they want to vote for him?

I don't have too much time for fiction.

I was alarmed at my doctor's report: He said I was sound as a dollar.

I believe Moses was 80 when God first commissioned him for public service.

There were so many candidates on the platform that there were not enough promises to go around.

You know, it was only a generation ago that actors couldn't be buried in the churchyard.

Dreams became issues of East versus West. Hopes became political rhetoric. Progress became a search for power and domination. Somewhere the truth was lost that people don't make war, governments do.

Were not cutting the budget simply for the sake of sounder financial management. This is only a first step toward returning power to the states and communities, only a first step toward reordering the relationship between citizen and government.

The American taxing structure, the purpose of which was to serve the people, began instead to serve the insatiable appetite of government. If you will forgive me, you know someone has once likened government to a baby. It is an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Government is not the answer to the problem - it IS the problem.

For three decades, we have sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.

Every dollar the federal government does not take from us, every decision it does not make for us, will make our economy stronger, our lives more abundant, our future more free.

When government gets too big, freedom is lost. Government is supposed to be the servant. But when a government can tax the people with no limit or restraint on what the government can take, then the government has become the master.

We are going to put an end to the notion that the American taxpayer exists to fund the Federal Government.

Free enterprise has done more to reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by Democrats.

Those who advocate more and more government regulation have been experimenting for 40 years, trying to create an economic system in which everyone can somehow be made more prosperous by the toil of someone else.

We must remove government's smothering hand from where it does harm; we must seek to revitalize the proper functions of government. We do these things to set loose again the energy and the ingenuity of the American people. We do these things to reinvigorate those social and economic institutions which serve as a buffer and a bridge between the individual and the state - and which remain the real source of our progress as a people.

The same government that requires a taxpaying citizen to document every statement on his tax return decrees that questioning a welfare applicant demeans and humiliates him.

Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted, it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy.

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.

If you owe the bank $10,000 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $10,000,000 they have a problem. After all is said and done, more is said than done. Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector.

The people's instincts are still right. You see them come to the rescue of someone-a child who falls down a well-hundreds of people rush to help, and labor and equipment are volunteered without any thought of who's going to pay for it. This is a basic feeling in Americans. They don't stand back in such a circumstance and ask what the government's going to do about it.

People don't start wars, governments do.

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

There seems to be an increasing awareness of something we Americans have known for some time - that the ten most dangerous words in the English language are "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.

All of us should remember that the federal government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

The government is currently experiencing withdrawal symptoms, and we musn't feed the habit by injecting more tax dollars into it.

History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20 percent of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government.... When it reaches 25 percent, there comes an increase in lawlessness.

The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

People are tired of wasteful government programs and welfare chiselers, and they are angry about the constant spiral of taxes and government regulations, arrogant bureaucrats, and public officials who think all of mankind's problems can be solved by throwing the taxpayers dollars at them.

Deficits, as I've often said, aren't caused by too little taxing, they're caused by too much spending. Presidents can't appropriate a dollar of tax payers money, only Congressmen can; and Congress is susceptible to all sorts of influences that have nothing to do with good government.

No longer must government be allowed to ride roughshod, absorbing the people's wealth, usurping their rights, and crushing their spirit.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community?

The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a Government Program

Our whole system of government is based on "We the people," but if we the people don't pay attention to what's going on, we have no right to bellyache or squawk when things go wrong.

I have always thought of government as a kind of organism with an insatiable appetite for money, whose natural state is to grow forever unless you do something to starve it.

Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.

If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.

Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity; not stifle it.

What has happened to the dreams of the United Nations' founders? What has happened to the spirit which created the United Nations? The answer is clear: Governments got in the way of the dreams of the people.

I thought the function of the government was to promote the general welfare, not to provide it.

Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem. ... Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it. ... The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.

To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.

Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

We developed at the local school district level probably the best public school system in the world. Or it was until the Federal government added Federal interference to Federal financial aid and eroded educational quality in the process.

Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.

Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.

. . . Government should do only those things the people cannot do for themselves.

Government is not the solution, but rather the cause of our problems.

My belief has always been... that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government-at point of bayonet if necessary-to restore that individual's constitutional rights

Either you will control your government, or government will control you.

History comes and history goes, but principles endure, and ensure future generations will defend liberty not as a gift from government but as a blessing from our Creator.

The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.

Isn't our choice really not one of left or right, but of up or down? Down through the welfare state to statism, to more and more government largesse accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty, and ultimately, totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society.

In 1992, the federal Government actually issued more work authorizations to immigrants and temporary foreign workers than the net number of new jobs created by our economy. Something is fundamentally wrong when we have millions of American citizens and legal residents begging for jobs, and yet we are admitting thousands and thousands of immigrants a year with virtually no consideration to our employment needs or their employment skills.

As government expands, liberty contracts.

We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down.

We in government should learn to look at our country with the eyes of the entrepreneur, seeing possibilities where others see only problems

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.

You can't be for big government, big taxes and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.