James Florio Quotes

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

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

While I can see how the government has, at times, wasted taxpayers' money, and I can admit that too often its programs are ineffective, I also can see the good that government does.

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 do not believe that if you cut back what government does you diminish its authority. On the contrary, a government that did less, and therefore did better, would strengthen its authority.

We can't do without government, but we do need it to be more effective.

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

No one has yet succeeded in reducing the size or scope of the federal government.

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.

There was a time that you could say the least government was the best—but not in the nation's most populous state.

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.

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.

We don't need more government, we just need the government we have to work smarter and more efficiently.

I will support vigorously whoever commits to reduce the size of government the most.

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

The debate on how to shrink the federal government is at the core of our problem of government not doing its job.

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

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.

I hate big government, but I really hate a government that doesn't work. So when 'they say we either have to raise taxes or cut core services,' it's actually a 'false choice.'

I don't need to be looking at every failure of government, I need to be looking where failure of government needs reform.

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.

The Republican name used to be synonymous with limiting the size and scope of government, and we need to re-establish that reputation. We must work to eliminate government waste, make certain taxpayer dollars go to meaningful programs, and leave resources directly with the people.

Concerns about the size and role of government are what seem to leave reformers stammering and speechless in town-hall meetings. The right wants to have a debate over fundamental principles; elected Democrats seem incapable of giving it to them.

I was elected to come to an incredibly dysfunctional capital and make the government work better, and that's what I'm doing.