Ronald Reagan - Government Quotes

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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.

Ronald Reagan
'Trust-me' government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
Governments don't reduce deficits by raising taxes on the people; governments reduce deficits by controlling spending and stimulating new wealth.

Ronald Reagan
Respect for human rights is not social work; it is not merely an act of compassion. It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
The best view of big government is in the rearview mirror as we leave it behind.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

Ronald Reagan
The taxpayer—that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a Civil Service examination.

Ronald Reagan
In some dim beginning, man created the institution of government as a convenience for himself. And, ever since that time, government has been doing its best to become an inconvenience.

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

Ronald Reagan
It doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property?

Ronald Reagan
When the commander in chief of a nation finds it necessary to order employees of the government or agencies of the government to do things that would technically break the law, he has to be able to declare it legal in order for them to do that.

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

Ronald Reagan
When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident.

Ronald Reagan
I'm convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. Very simply, they want to be left alone in peace and safety to take care of the family by earning an honest dollar and putting away some savings. This may not sound too exciting, but there is something magnificent about it. On the farm, on the street corner, in the factory and in the kitchen, millions of us ask nothing more, but certainly nothing less than to live our own lives according to our values — at peace with ourselves, our neighbors and the world.

Ronald Reagan
Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say "But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time."

Ronald Reagan
When our Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.

Ronald Reagan
Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

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

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
Although I held public office for a total of sixteen years, I also thought of myself as a citizen-politician, not a career one. Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that "When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long." By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.

Ronald Reagan
Yes, deficits are a problem. I've been saying so for more than a quarter of a century now. But the problem is not the size of the deficit, it's the size of government's claim on our economy.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
Are you entitled to the fruits of your own labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?

Ronald Reagan
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

Ronald Reagan
Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process.

Ronald Reagan