Paul Ryan Quotes

We should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government.

I'm not here today to tell you government doesn't have a role to play. It does, but it needs to be the right role.

Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.

I believe that smaller government is better government. But I also believe that in the areas where government does play a legitimate role, we should demand that it is done better.

We need a Federal government that does what the government needs to do and stops doing what the government ought not to be doing.

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

No American conservative has ever argued that the government should never be involved in peoples' lives. That is anarchy, and we don't argue for that.

The fact is, my friends, most Americans don't want more government. They want less government.

The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense.

I don’t want to kill the government. I just want to shrink it down to a small enough size that I can flush it down the toilet.

"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others.

I'm a Democrat, and there are an important group of things only the government can do. But let us be clear that for most of the world, what they most need is less government.

What do you think the appropriate role of government is in society? The way I look at this job is, you want me to do X? Well, is the private sector doing X with any kind of success? Because if they are, I'd rather have them do it than have us do it.

Mr. Obama is proud of his belief that government knows best. When he told the world that individuals were not totally responsible for their personal success, that government has a major role in it, many Americans were taken aback. But Barack Obama sincerely believes that.

While we may argue about the size of government, the Republican Party has not been a party that says, 'I want to destroy government.'

I don't believe we need the government's help as much as some think we do. That belief sets me apart from the Democrats, since their way of dealing with everything is to tax and spend.

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.

Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

Big government doesn't work! It just doesn't work!

Liberals often don't see the problems, and conservatives don't see the promise, of government.

I don’t want to eliminate government. I just want to shrink it down to the size that you can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub.

What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government shall do everything and the idea that government shall do nothing.

Can government really be active and, at the same time, limited? History suggests otherwise.

The question today is not whether the government is too small or too small, but whether or not it works

The problem is that the energy in the Republican Party today is not directed at how to make government work better. It is directed against government.