Ronald Reagan Quotes on Government (38 Quotes)

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

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

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.

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

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power. But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

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 Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last. (October 27, 1964)

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.

Now you hear a lot of jokes about Silent Cal Coolidge, ... but I think that the joke is on the people that make jokes because if you look at his record, he cut the taxes four times. We had probably the greatest growth and prosperity that we've ever known. And I have taken heed of that because if he did nothing, maybe that's the answer for the Federal Government.

We are for aiding our allies by sharing some of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We are helping 107 We spent 146 billion. With that money, we bought a 2-million-dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity.

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

Governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people.

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)

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. So we have come to a time for choosing. (October 27, 1964)

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.

The best minds in government If any were, business would hire them away.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive a system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in

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 is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

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

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. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.

He had retired from the Senate, one of the best-liked and respected men in the country, and was practicing law and preparing to run for the Republican nomination for president in 1988. A call came asking him to come to the White House. He was walking toward the Oval Office when he saw the president, Ronald Reagan , standing alone in the darkened hallway. Howard, ... I need you ...

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

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.

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

Man is not free unless government is limited.

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.

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.

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.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

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

Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases. (Commenting on Congress and the federal budget, 1981)

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.

Why is it inflationary if the people keep their own money, and spend it the way they want to, but not inflationary if the government takes it and spends it the way it wants to

Summer's here, temperatures are rising and tempers will really rise if Congress doesn't pass an energy bill,