Government Shutdown Quotes

What we see happening with this Republican strategy is a willingness to threaten the very foundation of the world's greatest economic power. That is a very risky proposition. ~ Jay Carney

You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year. ~ William J. Clinton

I think it was absolutely a mistake for President Obama and Harry Reid to force a government shutdown. ~ Ted Cruz

When someone calls you a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe because you happen to disagree with them about tax policy or same-sex marriage or abortion, that's bullying. When someone slanders you because you happen to disagree with them about global warming or the government shutdown, that's bullying. When someone labels you a bad human being because they disagree with you, they are bullying you. They are attacking your character without justification. That's nasty. In fact, it makes them nasty. ~ Ben Shapiro

1995 government shutdown from GOP underestimating Clinton. ~ Newt Gingrich

Lawmakers need to be held accountable and should feel the impact of a government shutdown just like many other Americans will. ~ Debbie Stabenow

I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: 'Repeal and replace Obamacare.' That was not the mandate of the voters. If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different. ~ John McCain

What did Republicans get for 16 days of a government shutdown with people being hurt? We have absolutely nothing to show for it, other than a damaged brand. ~ Trey Gowdy

How many are worried about a government shutdown? How many are more worried about it starting back up? ~ Jay Leno

Republicans: 'we fought the good fight' - yeah, it woulda been worth it if we could have prevented just one poor kid from getting a free inhaler. ~ Bill Maher

We've got the government shutdown, but the beginning of Obamacare. You know what that means? You can now complain to your doctor about the government making you sick. ~ Jay Leno

It's one thing to stick to your guns. It's quite another to hold those guns to the heads of your citizens. ~ Lori Goodwin

So it was sort of an odd time because I had been hired, but my paperwork hadn't gone through. So I worked as an intern during the government shutdown, as an intern, but I already had a job. ~ Monica Lewinsky

None of this is fair to you. And should it continue, it will make it more difficult to keep attracting the kind of driven, patriotic, idealist Americans to public service that our citizens deserved and that our system of self-government demands. ~ Barack Obama

My guest Newt Gingrich shut down the government during the Clinton administration. I'll ask him when it's gonna start working again. ~ Stephen Colbert

What was I elected for? ... This is a matter of core principle. ~ John Culberson

Thistle flashes a wicked smile. "Oh, you haven't heard that one? The government struck a bargain with a cannibal, and they use him to dispose of bodies after executions."
"Who told you that story" I ask, trying to sound casual.
"The supermax prisoners use it to scare each other up in Huntsville. Better watch your step or a man from the government will come and eat you." She shrugs. "It doesn't make much sense, but conspiracy theories never do."
"Right. It's probably bullshit."
Thistle laughs. "Probably?"
"Definitely bullshit," I clarify. Then I take another bite out of Nigel Boyd's thigh. ~ Jack Heath

love at first sight
is only possible
if the government

hasn't first
taken your eyes ~ Sam Sax

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

The politician and the government expert receive their revenues, not from service voluntarily purchased on the market, but from a compulsory levy on the populace. These officials, therefore, wholly lack the pecuniary incentive to care about serving the public properly and competently. ~ Murray Rothbard

In order to restore security for Israeli citizens, every home, mother and child in Israel, and to establish a stable and strong government that will unite the nation ... I hereby declare my candidacy for the Likud party leadership and premiership of Israel. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

Every man is responsible for defending every woman and every child. When the male no longer takes this role, when he no longer has the courage or feels the moral responsibility, then that society will no longer be a society where honor and virtue are esteemed. Laws and government cannot replace this personal caring and commitment. In the absence of the Warrior protector, the only way that a government can protect a society is to remove the freedom of the people. And the sons and daughters of lions become sheep. ~ James Williams

I hope every person who reads or hears this will take the time to go back and read the Declaration of Independence. Only by recapturing the spirit of independence can we ensure our government never resembles the one from which the American States declared their separation. ~ Ron Paul

DB: There's a lot of talk about terrorism. In fact, it's become almost an obsession for the media in the United States. But it's a very narrow definition of terrorism.
AR: Yes. It completely ignores the economic terrorism unleashed by neoliberalism, which devastates the lives of millions of people, depriving them of water, food, electricity. Denying them medicine. Denying them education. Terrorism is the logical extension of this business of the free market. Terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketeers of war - people who believe that it isn't only the state that can wage war, but private parties as well.
If you look at the logic underlying an act of terrorism and the logic underlying a retaliatory war against terrorism, they are the same. Both terrorists and governments make ordinary people pay for the actions of their governments. Osama bin Laden is making people pay for the actions of the US state, whether it's in Saudi Arabia, Palestine, or Afghanistan. The US government is making the people of Iraq pay for the actions of Saddam Hussein. The people of Afghanistan pay for the crimes of the Taliban. The logic is the same.
Osama bin Laden and George Bush are both terrorists. They are both building international networks that perpetrate terror and devastate people's lives. Bush, with the Pentagon, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Bin Laden with Al Qaeda. ~ Arundhati Roy

The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent ... It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. ~ Thomas Jefferson

We have now in our possession three instruments of civilization, unknown to antiquity. These are the art of printing; free representative government; and, lastly, a pure and spiritual religion, the deep fountain of generous enthusiasm, the mighty spring of bold and lofty designs, the great sanctuary of moral power. ~ Edward Everett

The house of representatives ... can make no law, which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. ~ James Madison

Lending dollars to the U.S. government is essentially riskless because the U.S. government can always pay such debts. If necessary, the Federal Reserve can print dollars to pay the debt. ~ Anat Admati

The last few months have seen a welcome race to the top. Consumers have sent companies a clear signal that they do not want their purchasing habits to drive deforestation and companies are responding. Better still, companies are committing to working in partnership with suppliers, governments and NGOs to strengthen forest governance and economic incentives. It can be done and this Declaration signals a real intention to accelerate action. ~ Paul Polman

The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control ... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent. ~ Larry McDonald

They quickly started passing from hand to hand and operated something like currency. The government first tried to forbid their use, then a year or two later - and this became a familiar pattern in China - when it realized that it could not suppress them, switched gears and established a bureau empowered to issue such notes themselves. ~ David Graeber

My last divorce was in '68. What made it come to a head was a promise. See, I had promised her that the next year I wouldn't work as much. But then I got in trouble with the IRS, and I had to continue working just as much to pay the government. So she said I lied, which is something I never did. ~ B.B. King

The accountability of government has gone to the point where the very use of the law is the instrument of illegality. ~ Ralph Nader

Surely the President can agree with us, that theft from government is not good. I know it's bold. It's out on the edge. I know from a Chicago-Springfield background it's hard to fully grasp that honesty could be part of government. ~ Newt Gingrich

The government doesn't save enough, it borrows too much and it doesn't invest enough in the next generation. It's like what parents are trying to get their kids not to do, but if they look at the federal government, that's what they're doing. ~ Maya MacGuineas

Individuals had never much cared what had happened in the past, or would happen in the future, or how much others of their kind suffered or lacked. They did not care how many others died providing they lived. And government, to those who did not govern, had been largely a matter of indifference unless it happened to have a detrimental effect on the lives of individuals. Then, maybe, if the individuals had felt strongly enough, they had held protests, gone on strike, or started revolutions. ~ Louise Lawrence

Labour's task for government is to build consent for an outward-looking Britain as the best way to advance not just our interests, but also our values at a time of challenge, both at home and abroad. ~ Douglas Alexander

The real improvements then must come, to a considerable extent, from the local communities themselves. We need local revision of our methods of land use and production. We need to study and work together to reduce scale, reduce overhead, reduce industrial dependencies; we need to market and process local products locally; we need to bring local economies into harmony with local ecosystems so that we can live and work with pleasure in the same places indefinitely; we need to substitute ourselves, our neighborhoods, our local resources, for expensive imported goods and services; we need to increase cooperation among all local economic entities: households, farms, factories, banks, consumers, and suppliers. If. we are serious about reducing government and the burdens of government, then we need to do so by returning economic self-determination to the people. And we must not do this by inviting destructive industries to provide "jobs" to the community; we must do it by fostering economic democracy. For example, as much as possible the food that is consumed locally ought to be locally produced on small farms, and then processed in small, non- polluting plants that are locally owned. We must do everything possible to provide to ordinary citizens the opportunity to own a small, usable share of the country. In that way, we will put local capital to work locally, not to exploit and destroy the land but to use it well. This is not work just for the privileged, the well-positioned, the ~ Wendell Berry

Those tax-exempt bonds were put in so that a town or a state or a government could sell more bonds than it ought to. ~ Will Rogers

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. ~ Thomas Jefferson

A free government is of all others the most energetic. ~ Thomas Jefferson

With regard to the youth vote we should encourage them to partake in the process, making more use of our education system to show the role Government plays in their lives, but also utilise the youth media they relate to to better connect them to our message. ~ Adam Rickitt

A government is one that thinks and hears the voice of the poor. A government must live for the poor. ~ Narendra Modi

Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency. ~ David Mamet

The government favors the most diplomatic language. That's why any letter to them should always start with, "Dear turkeys and foul maggots ... " ~ Christopher Titus

If religious freedom is to endure in America, the responsibility for teaching religion to public school children must be left to the homes and churches of our land, where this responsibility rightfully belongs. It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system. ~ Sam Ervin

The so-called liberals of today have the very popular idea that freedom of speech, of thought, of the press, freedom of religion, freedom from imprisonment without trial-that all these freedoms can be preserved in the absence of what is called economic freedom. They do not realize that, in a system where there is no market, where the government directs everything, all those other freedoms are illusory, even if they are made into laws and written up in constitutions. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Every man aims at avoiding what causes him pain; the activities of government ultimately consist in the infliction of pain. All great achievements of mankind were the product of a spontaneous effort on the part of individuals; government substitutes coercion for voluntary action. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

The remedy for our social evils does not consist so much in changing the system of government as it does in increasing the general intelligence of the people so that they may learn how to govern. ~ Charles Lindbergh

The role of government has never been to plan every detail or dictate every outcome. At its best, government has simply knocked away barriers to opportunity and laid the foundation for a better future. Our people
with all their drive and ingenuity
always end up building the rest. And if we can do that again
if we can continue building that foundation and making those hard decisions on behalf of the next generation
I have no doubt that we will leave our children the America that we all hope for. ~ Barack Obama

President Obama says he will not support a healthcare plan where the government gets to decide whether to, quote, 'pull the plug on Grandma.' Apparently, Obama's plan calls for the much quicker pillow option. ~ Conan O'Brien

While anyone who practices a religion has the right to their own religious truths, it doesn't give them the right to violate the welfare of another human or an animal. So, where necessary, it is the task of the government to intervene and curb the freedom of religion. ~ Marianne Thieme

Yes, there have been ET visitations. There have been crashed craft. There have been material and bodies recovered. There has been a certain amount of reverse engineering that has allowed some of these craft, or some components, to be duplicated. And there is some group of people that may or may not be associated with government at this point that have this knowledge. They have been attempting to conceal this knowledge. People in high level government have very little, if any, valid information about this. It has been the subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and create confusion so the truth doesn't come out. ~ Edgar D. Mitchell

Government employees move up the ladder through educational credentials rather than merit. People are given jobs and promotions based on seniority, race and gender rather than ability or talent. Such a system often overlooks the deserving and rewards the incompetent. There is no payoff for achievement. ~ James Cook

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. ~ James Madison

Revolutions (she'd long since learned) ran on committees just like any other government, once you got past the screaming-and-shooting stage. ~ Charles Stross

It is the function of God Rama to destroy evil, wherever it occurs and it is equally the function of God Rama to give to his devotees like Bibhishana a free charter of irrevocable self-government. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production ~ Ludwig Von Mises

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. ~ George Washington

Politicians are interested in the health of the people like predators savor live prey. ~ A.E. Samaan

As historian Gerald McKnight observes, "King was proposing nothing less than a radical transformation of the Civil Rights Movement into a populist crusade calling for redistribution of economic and political power. America's only civil rights leader was now focusing on class issues and was planning to descend on Washington with an army of poor to shake the foundations of the power structure and force the government to respond to the needs of the ignored underclass. ~ Michelle Alexander