Jennifer Pahlka Quotes

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

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

I do think there are some irreducible inefficiencies in government. But we still need to have government; we still need to make government effective if we can.

Government should do a few things, and do them right

"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.

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

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

For some in Washington, it's become sport to pick on the federal workforce. I think they do so unjustly. The very foundation of a stable America is having a government that functions well. Many countries have dysfunctional governments, because they don't have a good government workforce.

The issue isn't more or less government. It's dumb vs. smart government.

The question of our time is rapidly becoming can government get things done?

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

[Peter] Drucker says that modern government can do only two things well: wage war and inflate the currency. Its the aim of my administration to prove Mr Drucker wrong.

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

Obama is trying to paint us as a caricature, as if we're some bizarre individualists who are hardcore libertarians. It's a false dichotomy and intellectually lazy. Of course we believe in government. We think government should do what it does really well, but that it has limits.

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

I'm not a 'messiah' coming to change Washington. I don't come with a political background, so I think it's part of my responsibility to raise my hand and say 'Why?' Folks don't just want smaller government; they want an efficient small government.

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

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

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.

Administration is the essence of government, and its quality is a prime condition of civic comfort.