Tom Graves Quotes

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

With Government funding comes regulation.

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

I think higher education is over-regulated.

We have to be careful about creating more rules.

We have seen an outrageous increase in the size, scope, and intrusiveness of the federal government.

We live in a world where the laws are getting so tight that management has changed to micro-management to quantum-management to paralysis.

In most languages, 'control' is the first synonym for the word 'manage.' Control is about spotting and correcting deviations from pre-defined standards; thus to control, one must first constrain.

In American politics, 'Europe' is usually a code word for 'big government.'

This is government. There is no entertainment.

We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people's feet to the fire.

I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P. J. O'Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

Government regulation is not a dangerous usurpation of your Constitutional rights. It's just a pain in the ass.

Government is good at one thing. It knows how to cripple you and then hand you a crutch.

I confess to a prejudice against officialism and a dread of bureaucracy.

What is decided must be implemented and implemented without any departmental interpretation

I think there is a sort of box-ticking mentality. Not just in the teaching profession. You hear about it in medicine and nursing. It's a lawyer-driven insistence on meeting prescribed standards rather than just being a good doctor.

Federal government has forced a one-size-fits-all model on our education system.

the State only aims at instilling those qualities in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two walls.

The government doesn't want us to have weapons and yet, they have weapons. I think the biggest weapon they have is the IRS - Internal Revenue Service. They can use taxes as a weapon, and the IRS code that you can't even figure it out.

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

Whenever you hear, “it’s for your own good” from the government, you are about to lose some money or freedom. Always!

Liberals want the government to get bigger, and they want you to drive smaller cars, and they want to dictate the way you live.

More government isn't going to help you get ahead. It's going to hold you back. More government isn't going to create more opportunities. It's going to limit them.

Americans are willing to cheer on politicians who denounce bureaucratic overreach and job-killing red tape in abstract terms. But they turn out to like specific regulations against toxic chemicals in their drinking water.