Lucy Powell Quotes

All's the government should do is keep the taxes and regulations at a manageable rate, keep a decent standing army and get out of the way.

Romney is right that the Obama vision is too centered on government. But his is too centered on the promotion of business and wealth creation at the expense of everything else.

I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire.

To Republicans, I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.

Certainly, the job of a U.S. senator is to create a climate conducive to creating jobs, which is lower taxes and less government regulation. What Harry Reid has been doing is putting forward those policies that actually put more regulation on business.

The President and the Democrats on Congress have exploited the financial crisis to advance their socialist big government tax, spend and borrow agenda.

I've criticized President Bush for his failure to use his veto pen. There's plenty of blame to go around. The question is how to solve problems. It's not bailouts. What made America great? Free markets, free enterprise, manufacturing, job creation. That's how we're gonna do it, not by enlarging government.

The Republican Party is terrific at determining how a program will impact the federal budget, but we're not nearly as good as the Democrats in explaining to people how our agenda will directly benefit them and their families.

I was involved in the 'reformicon' effort in 2013-2014, which was explicitly, 'We can't just Xerox Reagan.' In the spirit of Reagan, actually, we could rethink things - maybe we need to think more about job-training programs, earned income tax credit, adjust the tax code.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand that government does not create jobs. Entrepreneurs do.

Big government doesn't help the middle class, it buries it.

The global economy is spluttering back into life. The Tories would have left it to choke to death.

While many of Mr. Obama's ideas warrant skepticism, conservative opposition to any expanded role for government is a mistake.

You don't grow the economy by growing government.

Government's role should be only to keep the playing field level, and to work hand in hand with business on issues such as employment. But beyond this, to as great an extent as possible, it should get the hell out of the way.

The question is what will Mitt Romney do as president if his policy is simply to be hands off and let the government be made so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. In the 21st century global economy, no state alone has the ability to compete against China.

Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.

Now, let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today.

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.

The government should move towards supporting aspirations and not entitlement. Subsidies supporting non-productive growth should be reduced.

If we have an economic crisis in the Western world it's because the government makes up 50 percent or more of the economy. This is a cancer that is taking away people's freedom.

I mean, the Obama position has been, 'We think government ought to be spending this money, not the people who earn it.'

I'm not a knee-jerk conservative. I passionately believe in free markets and less government, but not to the point of being a libertarian.

Liberal redistributionists in favor of heavy taxation place less weight on incentive than do small-government conservatives.

Instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.