State Government Quotes

There were moments of racial unity. Lawrence Goodwyn found in east Texas an unusual coalition of black and white public officials: it had begun during Reconstruction and continued into the Populist period. The state government was in the control of white Democrats, but in Grimes County, blacks won local offices and sent legislators to the state capital. The district clerk was a black man; there were black deputy sheriffs and a black school principal. A night-riding White Man's Union used intimidation and murder to split the coalition, but Goodwyn points to "the long years of interracial cooperation in Grimes County" and wonders about missed opportunities. ~ Howard Zinn

I believe Nebraskans appreciate the fiscal discipline I've brought to state government, balancing the budget without raising taxes and prioritizing education funding. ~ Dave Heineman

For the first time in over a decade, your state government is doing what you do every day at home-spending what it takes in and saving for a rainy day. ~ Tate Reeves

State government has too often been used to look out for the insiders and not the citizens. This has insulated poverty from progress, and need from remedy. ~ Ernie Fletcher

It is by far the safer course to lay [considerations of the future] altogether aside; and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in the constitution. Everything beyond this, must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the General and State governments. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Of course, many acts which are sins against God are also injuries to our fellow-citizens, and must on that account, but only on that account, be made crimes. But of all the sins in the world, I should have thought homosexuality was the one that least concerns the State. We hear too much of the State. Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place. ~ C.S. Lewis

When I was Governor, Louis Kelso went out of his way to brief me. I was very impressed, but I was never able to get any of the economists in state government to give him the help his plan deserves. ~ Jerry Brown

Being a successful CEO, where I've driven a bottom line, assembled teams, driven results, that's a critical benefit to running the state government. ~ Bruce Rauner

A man can lead a reasonably full life without a family, a fixed local residence, or a religious affiliation, but if he is stateless he is nothing. He has no rights, no security, and little opportunity for a useful career. There is no salvation on earth outside the framework of an organized state. ~ Joseph Reese Strayer

In this most powerful nation in the world, lack of access to health care should not force local and state governments, companies and workers into bankruptcy, while causing unnecessary illness and hospitalization. ~ John Conyers

There was a time when the United States government earned the trust of its people. There was a time when most people believed that the United States government was protecting them. ~ Rush Limbaugh

I don't think it's any secret that the public has lost confidence in the state government, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done on issues related to public integrity. ~ Eric Schneiderman

I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong's rule of law. ~ Edward Snowden

There are terrific models for success with reluctant readers, but many school systems and state governments need to set aside their 'not invented here' and 'we have more important problems than education' attitudes. ~ James Patterson

I cannot allow state government to continue to be consumed by this game of political 'gotcha.' ~ Ernie Fletcher

Our principle is: to prevent all command over man by his fellowmen, to, make state, government, laws, or whatsoever form of compulsion existing, a thing of the past, to establish full freedom for all. Anarchism means first and foremost freedom from all government. ~ Johann Most

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. And ~ Alexander Hamilton

Our spending priorities are clearly in question when we are increasing bond indebtedness on pet projects such as museums while our infrastructure is allegedly failing. Mississippians are spending more on basic needs than ever. They don't need their state government making that worse. ~ Chris McDaniel

In spite of advances in technology and changes in the economy, state government still operates on an obsolete 1970s model. We have a typewriter government in an Internet age. ~ Matt Blunt

The very worst aspect of poverty in the United States is the realization that - No one gives a shit whether you live or die.
The federal government, the state government couldn't care less. They're busy maintaining the status quo, and poverty is a big part of the economic balancing act. Hell, the economy would collapse if poverty was solved. The medical and health insurance industries; if they can't make any money off of you you're already dead to them. They couldn't care one iota if you live a life of physical pain and suffering.
And the citizens' hmmph, they're too busy stepping all over one another trying to avoid poverty.

What an insult and spit in the face of humanity to call all of this insanity civilized. ~ Brien Pittman

California had organized itself, not accidentally, into highly partisan legislative districts. It elected highly partisan people to office and then required these people to reach a two-thirds majority to enact any new tax or meddle with big spending decisions. On the off chance that they found some common ground, it could be pulled out from under them by voters through the initiative process. Throw in term limits - no elected official now serves in California government long enough to fully understand it - and you have a recipe for generating maximum contempt for elected officials. Politicians are elected to get things done and are prevented by the system from doing it, leading the people to grow even more disgusted with them. "The vicious cycle of contempt," as Mark Paul calls it. California state government was designed mainly to maximize the likelihood that voters will continue to despise the people they elect. ~ Michael Lewis

New Hampshire state government is a big customer for prescription drug companies. Just as businesses do, we should take advantage of the bargaining power we have as a big customer. ~ John Lynch

As New York's chief law enforcement officer, I have taken a hard line against those in state government who abuse the law they have sworn to uphold. ~ Eric Schneiderman

I am trying to send directions out and keep control of state government for the final month. ~ Scott McCallum

If you need to put your money in a safe and secure place and you want it to earn interest, Treasury bonds are safer than putting it in any bank as a deposit or putting it anywhere else, because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. ~ Jim Cooper

There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States, but around the world. ~ Glenn Greenwald

It [the Constitution] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted. ~ Barack Obama

What the F.D.I.C. does is to put the full faith and credit of the United States government behind every savings account in the nation, up to a limit that has changed over the years and stands now at $100,000. ~ Nick Clooney

The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples ... We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is MORE than a state, government and sovereignty
this is national consolidation in a free homeland. ~ David

The Connection Machines owned by the United States government laboratories were made available to me because they were considered impossible to program and there was no great demand for them at that time. ~ Philip Emeagwali

The United States government does not negotiate with terrorists. ~ Cofer Black

The built environment is shaped not only by private sector development pratices, but also by the honored and fascinating field of planning. Planners in towns, counties, regional and state government, consulting firms and in economic development agencies translate ideas about human settlements into concrete designs. They can be generalists or specialize in transportation, urban centers, rural land use, economic development and more. At its best, the planning profession aims to mediate tensions between people, social groups, and the natural environment by creating an orderly process for determining common values, shared priorities and elegant principles for transcending conflicts. Therefore planners may find themselves caught in some of the most challenging political crossfire to be found. But they also have the opportunity to educate many sectors and communities. ~ Melissa Everett

As a practising lawyer, I was mediocre, but I worked hard as a law officer of the state government and on the private side. After becoming a judge, I maintained a low profile in other activities and concentrated only on judicial work. ~ P. Sathasivam

We are changing the way we govern ourselves - not just in the way we work in New Delhi, but also in the way we work together with state governments, districts and cities. Because we know, as you do, that our vision may be formed in Delhi, but our success will be determined by state capitals. ~ Narendra Modi

The value of government to the people it serves is in direct relationship to the interest citizens themselves display in the affairs of state. ~ William Scranton

This website is the dream of people who want to change the culture of state government. ~ Steve Rauschenberger

I'm not driven to get back into politics. It's not on my top five things to do before I die, but saying that, I may be in politics in the next year or the next ten years. I've been on the front line for 12 years, four in state government, eight on the national level. ~ J. C. Watts

New York State is upside down and backwards; high taxes and low performance. The New York State government was at one time a national model. Now, unfortunately, it's a national disgrace. Sometimes, the corruption in Albany could even make Boss Tweed blush. ~ Andrew Cuomo

I don't want a lot of bureaucracy ... I want to run state government the same way we run a campaign - efficient, effective and victorious. ~ Charlie Crist

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The United States government, in figuring our gross national product, defines 'durable goods' as anything that will last three years. ~ Barbara Holland

And I just think that we're at a point in our economic life here in our state - and - and, candidly, across the country, where increased taxes is just the wrong way to go. The people of our state are not convinced that state government, county government, local government has done all they can with the money we already give them, rather than the money that we have before. ~ Chris Christie

Obama's Democrats have become the part of no. Real cuts to federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no. ~ Charles Krauthammer

This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them. ~ Alexander Hamilton

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

The United States government has the obligation to educate all young people in this country. ~ Al Sharpton

My goal was to make New Jersey's state government a model for all other states to emulate, hopefully thereby to stem, or at least slow down, the flow of power to the federal government. ~ Charles Edison

How can you contribute towards building the Indian society and the Indian nation? No better way than to upgrade the quality of young people in school, particularly the schools which are run by the state government in the villages. ~ Azim Premji

I think that the press has a duty and an obligation to report on local government, state government, federal government - to be aggressive, to do its job. And its job is to report on whatever it's covering. ~ Mark McKinnon

Why should it be mandatory for people to give interviews. I request state governments to remove the process of interviews for minor jobs to end corruption in getting jobs. ~ Narendra Modi

In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, the state of Oregon is extremely liberal in its state government and judicial system.That state has lenient drug laws, including wide access to medical marijuana. ~ Bill O'Reilly

We're going to restructure the state government into a government that's responsive to the needs of New York state taxpayers. ~ Carl Paladino

It is equally demonstrable that so far as Texas is concerned, there have been equal confusion, insecurity and injustice in the administration of the State governments. ~ William H. Wharton

Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority ... a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State. ~ Benito Mussolini

The federal government should not be an accessory to the unconstitutional actions of the Arizona state government. By continuing to work with Arizona police departments operating under SB 1070, the Department is implicitly condoning the shameful tactics authorized by the new law. ~ Lucille Roybal-Allard

In its exterior relations - abroad - this government is the sole and exclusive representative of the united majesty, sovereignty, and power of the States, constituting this great and glorious Union. To the rest of the world, we are one. Neither State nor State government is known beyond our borders. Within, it is different. ~ John C. Calhoun

As governor, I work in hand in hand with tribal leaders on everything from disaster response to economic development. Tribal governments are important partners to our state government, and I value the good relationships my administration has cultivated with them. ~ Mary Fallin

There are lots of other things that affect state growth besides state taxes. However, the reason I look at taxes is because these are policy variables that can be changed by state governments in order to get better results than they otherwise had. ~ Arthur Laffer

I was at MSNBC; I was constantly saying to them during Bridgegate, 'You've convicted Governor Christie without one iota of fact attaching him to the decision to stall the traffic on the bridge. Why don't we wait until the federal government or the state government ... completes its investigation.' ~ Tom Brokaw

If I were afraid of polls, I never would've been elected in two landslide elections, leading a highest percentage in our state's last election for governor. If I were afraid of polls, we wouldn't have privatized our charity hospital system, we wouldn't cut our state budget 26%, wouldn't have cut over 30,000 state government bureaucrats, wouldn't have done statewide school choice. Here's the real record. ~ Bobby Jindal

As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state. ~ Adam Smith

The modern state does not comprehend how anyone can be guided by something other than itself. In its eyes pluralism is treason. ~ Richard M. Weaver

[Paul] has no intention to instruct the Christian community about the task and responsibility of government. His entire concern is with the responsibility of the Christian community towards the State. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Literally every department of state government has gone through, or is in a period of, chaos. Not just fiscal chaos, but certainly as we saw in the Department of Children and Family Services and State Fair Agency and many of Walker's departments, there is absolute chaos. ~ Bill Scott

The Declaration of Independence says when government fails, the people have the right to replace it. Well, New York State government has failed and the people have the right, indeed the people have the the people have the obligation, to act. ~ Andrew Cuomo

The key difference between foot voting and ballot box voting is that foot voters don't have the same incentive to be rationally ignorant as ballot box voters do. In fact, they have strong incentives to seek out useful information. They also have much better incentives to objectively evaluate what they do learn. Unlike political fans, foot voters know they will pay a real price if they do a poor job of evaluating the information they get...
The informational advantages of foot voting over ballot box voting strengthen the case for limiting and decentralizing government. The more decentralized government is, the more issues can be decided through foot voting. It is usually much easier to vote with your feet against a local government than a state government, and much easier to do it against a state than against the federal government.
It is also usually easier to foot vote in the private sector than the public. A given region is likely to have far more private planned communities and other private sector organizations than local governments. Choosing among the former usually requires far less in the way of moving costs than choosing among the latter.
Reducing the size of government could also alleviate the problem of ignorance by making it easier for rationally ignorant voters to monitor its activities. A smaller, less complicated government is easier to keep track of. ~ Ilya Somin

Power must be used, but it must be tempered by soul-searching and the recognition of our human capacity for error. That is the maxim that should inform our approach to every challenge, from reforming state government to engaging in foreign affairs. ~ Eliot Spitzer

Enough of these little kitty cats we keep sending to Washington. David Dewhurst will compromise every day in the U.S. Senate ... It's what he's done every day in state government. ~ Ted Cruz

The insurance companies aren't covering that. Should Monsanto be liable for these losses? Should the state government? Who's going to cover the losses? The fact is, here's an industry with no long-term liability in place. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

Local and state governments have outrun the federal government. The EPA has served notice that it will enact a rule requiring CO2 reductions by major emitters in the absence of major legislation. But it's a blunt instrument that is a little more difficult to use than a legislative remedy. ~ Al Gore

Below the roads run the surveyors' lines which squared off the wilderness, and not only made it ready for sale but constructed a shape for county and state government. ~ Andro Linklater

I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job because the benefits that they didn't work were better. I changed that. ~ George Pataki

The thing that makes a man go crazy isn't loneliness or suffering after all--it's being kept in a state of perpetual dread. ~ Steve Toltz

We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I don't owe my success to state subsidies but to a faithful public which has sustained me. ~ Eric Rohmer

A cabinet is a combining committee, a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other. ~ Walter Bagehot

I want to say thank you to the great state of Indiana and all the fans ... Pacers Nation, Blue and Gold, thank you guys so much. ~ Reggie Miller

Health, not illness, is our natural state. It's usually just a matter of finding it tucked beneath the layers of imbalance that have accumulated over time. ~ Suhas G. Kshirsagar

Behind government corruption are a wide range of vested corporate interests. ~ Steven Magee

Funny that the people who aren't doing the fighting are the most tired of it," Evan said. "We never knew anything about people being sick of it, or protests, or people thinking we were the bad guys. All our news was censored. We thought everyone would be proud of us, like they are of our dads. We were out there, putting everything on the line every day because that's what our country told us to do, under conditions that would make a saint afraid to look God in the face, and we were doing our best. I knew there were a few anti-war protests before I left, but I never expected it to be like this… ~ Sabrina Fedel

Virginia, a state with one of the highest concentrations of scientific talent in the world, led the nation in denying education to its youth. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

I have lived by one crucial principle since I was 24 years old. I don't blame or complain about things like the economy, the government, taxes, employees, gas prices, or any of the external things that I don't have control over. The only thing I have control over is my response to these things. ~ Jack Canfield

Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office. ~ Beverly LaHaye

Just as the formation of the family is basic to the formation of the state, so the states themselves are the only units that can form the basic constitution of a viable international organization. ~ Leon Bourgeois

My first district was Northwest Iowa. In 2002, it became North Central Iowa hooking around Des Moines down to the south, clear up to the northeast corner of the state. ~ Tom Latham

Residents of my district continue to stress to me that they want health care decisions to be made by patients and doctors, not by the government and insurance companies. ~ Tim Walberg

Americans face a choice: you can rediscover the animating principles of the American idea
of limited government, a self-reliant citizenry, and the opportunities to exploit your talents to the fullest
or you can join most of the rest of the western world in terminal decline. To rekindle the spark of liberty once it dies is very difficult. ~ Mark Steyn

The anti-government rhetoric that continues to saturate our political life is rooted in [support for] slavery rather than liberty. The paralyzing suspicion of government so much on display today, that is to say, came originally not from average people but from elite extremists such as [John C.] Calhoun who saw federal power as a menace to their system of racial slavery. ~ Nancy MacLean

What Americans don't want to admit ... is that not only is there not a contradiction between state regulation and freedom, but in order for us to actually be free in our social interactions, there must be an extremely elaborated network of health, law, institutions, moral rules and so on. ~ Slavoj Zizek

The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Recognising that an ostentatious cult of heroism and state service served an important propaganda function for the British elite does not mean, of course, that we should dismiss it as artificial or insincere. All aristocracies have a strong military tradition, and for many British patricians the protracted warfare of the period was a godsend. It gave them a job, and, more important, a purpose, an opportunity to carry out what they had been trained to do since childhood: ride horses, fire guns, exercise their undoubted physical courage and tell other people what to do. ~ Linda Colley

The federal government hated it when people tried to move outside its sphere of control, no matter the reason. It was incapable of leaving people alone, even if they weren't causing trouble or doing anything more than keeping themselves to themselves. ~ Christopher G. Nuttall

One of the many signs of verbal virtuosity among intellectuals is the repackaging of words to mean things that are not only different from, but sometimes the direct opposite of, their original meanings. 'Freedom' and 'power' are among the most common of these repackaged words. The basic concept of freedom as not being subjected to other people's restrictions, and of power as the ability to restrict other people's options have both been stood on their heads in some of the repackaging of these words by intellectuals discussing economic issues. Thus business enterprises who expand the public's options, either quantitatively (through lower prices) or qualitatively (through better products) are often spoken of as 'controlling' the market, whenever this results in a high percentage of consumers choosing to purchase their particular products rather than the competing products of other enterprises.

In other words, when consumers decide that particular brands of products are either cheaper or better than competing brands of those products, third parties take it upon themselves to depict those who produced these particular brands as having exercised 'power' or 'control.' If, at a given time, three-quarters of the consumers prefer to buy the Acme brand of widgets to any other brand, then Acme Inc. will be said to 'control' three-quarters of the market, even though consumers control 100 percent of the market, since they can switch to another brand of widgets tomorrow if someon ~ Thomas Sowell

Just consider the CIA and its effort to suppress the Senate's review of its torture program. Take in the fact that we live in a country that a) legalized torture and b) where no one was ever held to account for it, and now the government's internal look at what happened is being suppressed by the CIA. That's a frightening landscape to be in. ~ Laura Poitras

Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure ... The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. ~ Walter E. Williams

If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life. ~ Robertson Davies

If one regards inflation as an evil, then one has to stop inflating. One has to balance the budget of the government. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I think Destiny's purpose is merely to shock us at moments into a state of awareness; those moments are milestones in between which we have to find our own way. ~ Attia Hosain

Governments keep their promises only when they are forced, or when it is to their advantage to do so. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead. ~ Vladimir Nabokov