Rudy Giuliani Quotes

Devolution [decentralization of government] cannot stop at the State House. It must go down to City Hall.

Quite as serious an error [of the French] is the failure to provide for local self-government. As this lies at the bottom of republican institutions, and should be, moreover, the first concern of democracy

13 years after Indonesia began devolving power from the federal government to hundreds of sub provincial units, the link between local and national political interests have become extremely tenuous… although locally elected politicians may be delivering things that people want in their own back yards, they are not, collectively meeting the nation’s needs.

I hope that we increasingly shift power to local governments.

I think there's been a decline in the public's access to what's being done with their tax dollars, what's being done in their name. I hope that that will be repaired.

That's what I think regions are about, making central government more accountable and fairer.

Our best protection against bigger government in Washington is better government in the states.

The only way to make government more efficient is to make it smaller and to make it more local.

Mayors are accountable. Local governments are accountable.

It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.

I am committed to working towards a more transparent, accountable, and ethical federal government worthy of the public's trust.

If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.

We're going to restructure the state government into a government that's responsive to the needs of New York state taxpayers.

My philosophy is not a bean-counting, accounting 'look at this.' It is a philosophy that smaller government is better government, and government that is closer to the people is best of all.

Too many people in government seem to think they are above regular folks, and I said I would expect humility in the way each member of my team served- that they would recognize that the taxpayer is boss.

A majority in all parties do, I think, want to see local government recover its old vigour and independence.

And we did it because it's time for City Hall to stop looking out for City Hall and start looking out for the people like you and me who are footing the bill.

People want a grounded government. They want a government that's going to be responsible to them.

I happen to be one who believes very strongly that state and local governments have their proper roles.

In Sacramento you simply had to think about what the law ought to be and leave it to someone else to implement. In San Francisco, you hear about it the next day.

Central government's such as Canada's have become too small to deal with the big global issues, yet they remain too large and distant to deal with problems of local control.

Democratic government is responsible government—which means accountable government--and the essential problem in contracting out is that responsibility and accountability are greatly diminished.

Our whole history tells us that the national government has been far less corrupt and incompetent than state and local government … Time and time again the federal government has had to rescue people from the states and local governments. If we left it to the states, we would still have slavery.

With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

States should have enormous input into the decisions that affect them.