Big Government Quotes

A Cultist is one who has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ; who frequently attends Bible studies; who has a high level of financial giving to a Christian cause; who home schools his children; who has accumulated survival foods and has a strong belief in the 2nd Amendment, and who distrusts Big Government. ~ Janet Reno

Leftist big-government policies have been disastrous for black America just as they were in the countries that most Hispanics emigrated from. But like the gambling addict who keeps gambling the more he loses, those addicted to government entitlements keep increasing the size of the government even as their situation worsens. ~ Dennis Prager

Big business learned that if you stopped fighting big government, you could profit from it by killing your smaller competitors. ~ Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Bill Clinton is the guy that said, "The era of Big Government is over." Whether or not he meant it or not, he said it. ~ Rush Limbaugh

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. ~ Ari Fleischer

Conservatism is a hard choice for a society that has become accustomed to big government and big entitlements promoted by liberals. ~ Jesse Helms

Big-government liberals don't like people with a sense of independence because independent people don't need big government. ~ Neal Boortz

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government. ~ Barack Obama

While big-business leaders and firms can be highly productive, servants of consumers in a free market economy, they are also all too often, seekers after subsidies, contracts, privileges, or cartels furnished by big government. Often, business lobbyists and leaders are the sparkplugs for the statist, interventionist system. ~ Murray Rothbard

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. ~ Steve Forbes

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. ~ Pete Sessions

A CRUNCHY CON MANIFESTO
1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.
2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship - especially of the natural world - is not fundamentally conservative.
6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
9. We share Russell Kirk's conviction that "the institution most essential to conserve is the family. ~ Rod Dreher

When you put your faith in big government, you end up an apologist for mass murder. ~ Karl Hess

I would vote for you for President but I'm against big government. ~ Jeff Ross

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

Every day Big Government heaps demands and restrictions upon businesses that sink some enterprises, cause others to direct resources away from serving customers and instead toward jumping through hoops of lawyers and regulators, and prevent other operations from ever getting off the ground. ~ Joel Miller

The Democrats' agenda isn't working for women. Their vision has produced big government and limited opportunity. Our vision is for limited government and opportunity for all. Women deserve better than what President Obama has delivered. ~ Reince Priebus

I think, with Obama and the progressives, you've seen a massive expansion of big government, and it's all based on a moral premise. The moral premise is that wealth is theft. And I don't just mean the wealth of America, I mean, your wealth, my wealth. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Keep Hope alive, particularly if Hope is the name of a very cute puppy and not some ill-defined abstraction that is in fact code for big government. ~ Jonah Goldberg

In the Western world, countries that were once the crucible of freedom are slipping remorselessly into a thinly disguised serfdom in which an ever higher proportion of your assets are annexed by the state as superlandlord. Big government is where nations go to die - not in Keynes' 'long run,' but sooner than you think. ~ Mark Steyn

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. ~ Gary Bauer

Legislating morality grows big government immensely, and helps fashion the noose the government will use to ultimately hang you by. ~ A.E. Samaan

The future is not Big Government. Self-serving politicians. Powerful bureaucrats. This has been tried, tested throughout history. The result has always been disaster. President Obama, your agenda is not new. It's not change, and it's not hope. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Americans, both politicians and voters, may have become corrupted by big government beyond redemption. A virtuous government requires a virtuous people. A frugal government requires a self-reliant people. A free country requires people who value liberty more than money. ~ Charley Reese

The Marxist promise that the state will "wither away" is like the guys promise that he will only insert the tip. ~ A.E. Samaan

If people give up their attachment to expansive government, they will feel free to fight the income tax. ~ Sheldon Richman

During the socialist period, the government became too big. That created a crowding-out effect in the private economy, and it gave everybody the need to pay more taxes in order to finance this big government. We are against big government. We want a smaller and more efficient government. ~ Antonis Samaras

What rendered it all acceptable was that government won the war, in astonishingly short order. Had the war dragged on or ended badly, the trust reposed in government might have been withdrawn. But the greatest conflict in human history was brought to a victorious conclusion for the United States only three and a half years after American entry. America's unprecedentedly large government defeated fascism; America's big government placed the United States at the pinnacle of world power. In the process, big government restored the nation's economic vitality and self-confidence. By 1945 most Americans found big government thoroughly acceptable, even necessary, and they had ample reason for feeling the way they did. ~ H.W. Brands

In American politics, 'Europe' is usually a code word for 'big government.' ~ James Surowiecki

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. ~ Glenn Beck

I think it's true that big government institutions should be scrutinized, big non-profit institutions should be scrutinized, big universities should be scrutinized. It just makes sense. ~ Jeff Bezos

During good times, it's easy to deride "big government" and talk about the inevitability of cutbacks. But during disasters, most everyone loses their free market religion and wants to know that their government has their backs. And if there is one thing we can be sure of, it's that extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the British floods - disasters that, combined, pummeled coastlines beyond recognition, ravaged millions of homes, and killed many thousands - are going to keep coming. ~ Naomi Klein

We are all assumed, these days, to reside at one extreme of the opinion spectrum, or another. We are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. We are free traders or protectionist. We are pro-private sector or pro-big government. We are feminists or chauvinists. But in the real world, few of us holds these extreme views. There is instead a spectrum of opinion. ~ Michael Crichton

Big government doesn't help the middle class, it buries it. ~ Marco Rubio

For some hippies, this vision could only be realised by rejecting scientific progress as a false God and returning to nature. Others, in contrast, believed that technological progress would inevitably turn their libertarian principles into social fact. Crucially, influenced by the theories of Marshall McLuhan, these technophiliacs thought that the convergence of media, computing and telecommunications would inevitably create the electronic agora - a virtual place where everyone would be able to express their opinions without fear of censorship. Despite being a middle-aged English professor, McLuhan preached the radical message that the power of big business and big government would be imminently overthrown by the intrinsically empowering effects of new technology on individuals. ~ Richard Barbrook

As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook Fascism's economic agenda
the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government
in their analysis of its authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic society. ~ Richard Heinberg

Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America's problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

We should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government. ~ Mitch Daniels

So why am I facing a recall election? Simple: the big government union bosses from Washington want their money. They don't like the fact that I did something fundamentally pro-worker; something that's truly about freedom. ~ Scott Walker

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

Mentioning Jesus in your speech: Small government. Doing what Jesus asked: Big government. ~ Stephen Colbert

The press is hostile to the idea of liberty. Most people in the press are for big government. Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it's health care problems, education, whatever it is - it's got to be more government. ~ Harry Browne

More paper money cannot make a society richer, of course - it is just more printed paper. Otherwise, why is it that there are still poor countries and poor people around? But more money makes its monopolistic producer (the central bank) and its earliest recipients (the government and big, government-connected banks and their major clients) richer at the expense of making the money's late and latest receivers poorer. ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

I am the candidate of tax cuts, repealing Obamacare, repealing Dodd-Frank, letting the markets work, coming up with patient-and-doctor-centered healthcare solutions instead of more big government - and just generally getting government off the backs of small businesses. ~ Wendy E. Long

Climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory for a big government politician who wants more power. Why? Because it is a theory that can never be disproven. ~ Ted Cruz

I'm not against business. I'm against big business in bed with big government. ~ Dave Brat

In the Washington soft money game, big business and big labor are accomplices working together to protect the mushy middle of big government, with plenty of special interest plums: Big unions get big spending and big business gets corporate welfare and special tax breaks - all at the expense of average Americans. ~ John McCain

History has shown that Big Government expands quickest in the immediate aftermath of a crisis - real or manufactured. ~ Bob Barr

Whether we look at capitalism, taxes, business, or government, the data show a clear and consistent pattern: 70 percent of Americans support the free enterprise system and are unsupportive of big government. ~ Arthur C. Brooks

The collusion of big business, big labor, and big government threaten the spirit of small business that makes America great. ~ Foster Friess

We enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We're throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big. ~ Austan Goolsbee

Enforcement isn't about big government or small government. It's about whether government works and who it works for. ~ Elizabeth Warren

Liberals say do not judge yet they favor big government with Judges deciding what is right or wrong for everyone. They only want people to judge in their favor. ~ Various

Because Reagan once said, you can't be for big government, big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy. Boy, ~ Ted Cruz

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. ~ John Moody

Big government squashes the human spirit ~ Dennis Prager

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! ~ Rick Perry

For fifty years now, we have tried big government. Yet too many people remain trapped in despair. Now, we must try a new way. ~ Marco Rubio

Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs. ~ Howard Zinn

It's all very well to run around saying regulation is bad, get the government off our backs, etc. Of course our lives are regulated. When you come to a stop sign, you stop; if you want to go fishing, you get a license; if you want to shoot ducks, you can shoot only three ducks. The alternative is dead bodies at the intersection, no fish, and no ducks. OK?
(Getting Control of the Frontier, Gainsville Sun, March 22, 1995) ~ Molly Ivins

Liberal" is one of those fine English words, like "lady" "gay" or "welfare" that have been spoiled by special pleading. So by "liberal I certainly don't mean tolerant or open-handed people or even big-government Democrats. I mean anyone who is excited that 1% of Ben and Jerry's profits go to promote world peace. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Liberals fostered the subsidies that have converted so many citizens to helplessness. They have made high taxes and big government a way of life. They have corrupted the politicians into believing that in order to be elected to office, they must dispense benefits. ~ James Cook

What is so bad about big government? My indictment of big government is that it is bad because it attacks liberty, prosperity, progress, harmony, and morality. Thanks to big government, we have significantly less of all of those good things than we would if we had been able to keep government right-sized. Big government is cancerous. Like a cancer, it hurts the body and tends to spread, doing more and more harm as it grows. It is time for some radical surgery. ~ George Leef

I have an institutional fear of big government. I have an institutional opposition to bureaucracy. ~ Rush Limbaugh

The era of resisting big government is never over. ~ Paul Gigot

It should be pointed out, however, that throughout the debate emphasis was placed on raising money only for the proper expense of government.3 None of the advocates of income taxation spoke of expanding the functions of government, and while the opposition mentioned "socialism" it seems doubtful that they had any idea of a New Deal. The American mind of the nineteenth century was incapable of comprehending paternalism, regulation, and control; it was too strongly rooted in the past for that. Even those who advocated the tax method of undermining private property were not aware of what they were doing, and would probably have stopped in their tracks if they could have foreseen the consequences of their proposal. It was not any urgency for Big Government - which they could not even have understood - that prompted them to advocate income taxation. It was simply an urgency to "soak the rich" - the very common sin of envy. ~ Frank Chodorov

It's like Tiger Woods' wife, we should take a nine iron to the back windshield of big government spending and smash it out. ~ Tim Pawlenty

Big Government depends on going around the country stirring up apathy - creating the sense that problems are so big, so complex, so intractable that even attempting to think about them for yourself gives you such a splitting headache it's easier to shrug and accept as given the proposition that only government can deal with them. ~ Mark Steyn

We need to keep government small, but we also need to keep the influence of big business small, and we need to keep the power in the hands of the people, where it belongs. Big government and big business aren't the only two alternatives. ~ Michael Monroe

At first, it seemed bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of the alliance professed to be pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-whatever's-your-bag secularists; the other half were homophobic, misogynist, anti-any-groove-you-dig theocrats...it made no sense. But in fact what they had in common overrode their superficially more obvious incompatibilities, both the secular Big Government progressive and the political Islam recoiled from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential. ~ Mark Steyn

If you like big government, move to Massachusetts. ~ Joe Miller

Republicans have been very successful. There are three things Americans don't like: big unions, big government and big corporations. So Republicans go after big government and big unions, and only talk about small businesses. ~ Andy Stern

Big government is the most corrupt industry in America. ~ Malcolm Wallop

But those who believe that what our people desire is big government are living in a state of delusion. ~ Marco Rubio

Every unnecessary law helps fashion the noose we will ultimately be hung by. ~ A.E. Samaan

Liberals don't love big government because they think it's efficient, compassionate, fair or even remotely useful. They support big government because they are guaranteed the support of nearly everyone who works for the government. ~ Ann Coulter

Liberalism is dead, so dead that Democrats have all become moderate Republicans, and the heavy hand of Big Government is now limp and damp and trembly. ~ Garrison Keillor

What do intellectuals and opinion makers get from big government? An increasing number of cushy jobs in the bureaucracy, or in the government-subsidized sector, staffing the welfare regulatory state, and apologizing for its policies, as well as propagandizing for them among the public. To put it bluntly, intellectuals, theorists, pundits, media elites, etc. get to live a life which they could not attain on the free market, but which they can gain at taxpayer expense. ~ Murray Rothbard

The President and the Democrats on Congress have exploited the financial crisis to advance their socialist big government tax, spend and borrow agenda. ~ Bradley A. Blakeman

"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others. ~ Van Jones

Our present system is unique in world history, because over and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the general, conscious lie. To this putrefaction of the soul, this spiritual enslavement, human beings who wish to be human cannot consent. When Caesar, having exacted what is Caesar's, demands still more insistently that we render him what is God's - that is a sacrifice we dare not make! ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Look for a candidate who can do to the electorate what corporations are learning to do, so Government - or, better, Big Government, Big Brother, Intrusive Government - becomes the image against which this candidate defines himself. Though ~ David Foster Wallace

Hillary Clinton: putting big government spending financed by the Chinese ahead of good-paying jobs for middle-class Americans. Is she guilty or not guilty? ~ Chris Christie

When others spoke of the fear of war, you spoke of the need for warriors and peace through strength. When others bewailed the failure of big government to provide for the collective good, you spoke of self-reliance, of personal responsibility, of individual pride and integrity. When others preached compromise - when others demanded compromise, you, Ronald Reagan, preached conviction. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Free enterprise makes people prosperous, all people prosperous, and big government makes people poorer. ~ Marco Rubio

The present struggle seems less about abolishing big government than about who gets to use it. ~ William Greider

We [the Republicans] help the middle class when we unburden them from the very policies that Hillary Clinton would double down on. She champions Big Government, which we know enables crony capitalism and exacerbates inequality. If you are wealthy, powerful and well-connected, you can handle Big Government. ~ Carly Fiorina

These economic, social, cultural and educational causes of opportunity inequality are complex. And they will not be solved by continuing with the same stale Washington ideas. Five decades and trillions of dollars after President Johnson waged his War on Poverty, the results of this big-government approach are in. ~ Marco Rubio

The battle lines were now drawn: On one side, the elites of both parties, who had governed America for decades and supported big government and a globalist interventionist Foreign policy;

On the other side were the populists - the ordinary Citizens who rarely got excited about politics, but were now mobilized in rebellion against a governing class they believed was arrogant, unresponsive, and unsuccessful.

It was a revolt by the governed against the governing. ~ KT McFarland

The individualist insists that drastic depressions are the result of credit inflation; (not excessive savings, as the Keynesians would have it) which at all times in history has been caused by direct government action or by government influence. As for aggravated unemployment, the individualist insists that it is exclusively the result of government intervention through inflation, wage rigidities, burdensome taxes, and restrictions on trade and production such as price controls and tariffs. The inflation that comes inevitably with government pump-priming soon catches up with the laborer, wipes away any real increase in his wages, discourages private investment, and sets off a new deflationary spiral which can in turn only be counteracted by more coercive and paternalistic government policies. And so it is that the "long run" is very soon a-coming, and the harmful effects of government intervention are far more durable than those that are sustained by encouraging the unhampered free market to work out its own destiny. ~ William F. Buckley Jr.

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. ~ Marcia Angell

I may be Anti-Big Government, but only because I am Pro-Human. ~ Gary Hopkins

The FBI has always supported big business and big government. ~ Leonard Peltier

Under Big Government, the ruling class get power and perks,...but others among the ruled class just get unruly. ~ Mark Steyn

We have got to accept Big Government for the duration-for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged, given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores. ... And if they deem Soviet power a menace to our freedom (as I happen to), they will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington-even with Truman at the reins of it all. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

The message of David Duke, is this, basically: Big government, anti-big government, get out of my pocketbook, cut my taxes, put welfare people back to work. That's a very popular message. The problem is the messenger. ~ Dan Quayle

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

the economic pain gripping the United States will not actually be the fault of immigrants - or China, Muslims, environmentalists, or even terrorists. Nor is the essential problem Big Government: As we have seen, the desperate effort to inflate government spending and power is more of an effect than a cause of the nation's predicament. ~ Richard Heinberg

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. ~ Robert B. Reich

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