Fred Thompson Quotes

There is no question that the federal government sometimes overdoes it in issuing rules and regulations.

The sum of all the current regulations presents ever increasing hurdles.

German businessmen are overwhelmed by the high cost of doing business. Inflexible rules, enforced by a burgeoning bureaucracy, discourage entrepreneurship.

The regulatory systems in place disincentive innovation. It's intense to fight the red tape.

When I visit local communities, people often complain that they need the approval of several dozen government departments to get something done or to start a business, and people are quite frustrated about this.

No government body is more notorious for over-legislation than the Department of Trade and Industry.

I think a lot of times there is a tendency in Washington to make rules because of something that was adverse or fraud or something like that. And we make a lot of rules and end up hurting a lot of innocent people that are trying to start up their companies.

Every regulation requires two more regulations to deal with the unintended consequences.

CIA is slowly turning into the Department of Agriculture. The agency has an advanced case of bureaucratic arteriosclerosis.

Sometimes I think people live in a parallel universe when they say all we need are a few more regulations.

Heavy-handed regulations hurt the very consumers they're supposed to help.

Federal rules and regulations too often become seemingly insurmountable obstacles to simple changes that can have a positive impact.

We've got a very poor record on unnecessary red tape; extra cost to business; people being asked to do things they don't need to; over the top regulation, misinterpreted regulation, poor guidelines.

When I travel around the country, I see great companies with new ideas and a can-do attitude. But too often they are in hand-to-hand and pen-to-paper combat with officialdom.

What happens when you have vast legislative overreach is you don't particularly fix the problem you started out to fix but create problems for everyone else.

Obamacare represents a shocking display of political arrogance. It's about time Washington started listening to Americans' common sense voices.

Visit USA.gov and you'll find thousands of directorates, agencies, boards, offices, and services replete with overlapping responsibilities, ancient priorities, and divided accountability.

So Bush certainly wasn't the greatest, and Obama has not done the job. And he's created a lot of disincentive. He's created a lot of great dissatisfaction. Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It's almost impossible to get anything done in the country.

The constant need for special waivers is symptomatic of poorly written public policy. It's a signal that the cost of compliance is unreasonably high; the benefits are hard to measure; and either legislators or regulators have failed to do their homework.

We cannot afford the EPA's continued expansion of red tape that is slowing economic growth and threatening to entangle millions of small businesses.

Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.

If we overregulate, over control, impose too many burdens and too much bureaucracy - or if we do it across the board, without taking into account the differences among businesses and their relative impact on society - that could make people risk-averse and dampen the entrepreneurial spirit.

I'm not a big believer in the power of more regulation to fix things. I think it can almost be more dangerous because it provides the illusion that things have been fixed without the substance.