Ronald Reagan"[W]e don't have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much."
"Freedom is indivisible - there is no 's' on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep 'some freedoms' while giving up others."
"Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets."
"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
"I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."
"If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly."
"Liberals fought poverty and poverty won."
"Man is not free unless government is limited.... As government expands, liberty contracts."
"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."
"Republicans believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more welfare."
"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."
"The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution."
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
"The taxpayer; that's someone who works for the federal government, but doesn't have to take a civil service examination."
"There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."
"Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."
"What is euphemistically called government-corporate 'partnership' is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn't work."
"You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy."
"You know it's said that an economist is the only professional who sees something working in practice and then seriously wonders if it works in theory."