Brad Meltzer Quotes

Congress is constantly engaged in a struggle for the respect of the people.

Excessive administration secrecy... feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public's confidence in government.

Another way of verbally masking elite preemption of other people's decisions is to use the word 'ask'-as in 'We are just asking everyone to pay their fair share.' But of course governments do not ask, they: tell. The Internal Revenue Service does not 'ask' for contributions. It takes.

American and world history show that if you want minimal government, you can have it—but only if you want almost everyone in your society also to be a dirt-poor, subsistence farmer. If you want a prosperous, growing modern economy, you need high specialization and a huge, complex, interdependent network of individuals, businesses, research centers and education. And only government has the authority or money to regulate that network and to regularly pump in the targeted funds needed to sustain and grow it.

The problem is that the American public is suspicious of executive power shrouded in secrecy. In the absence of an official picture of what our government is doing, and by what authority, many in the public fill the void by envisioning the worst.

Washington is built on power.

I'll never stop listening to police officers over politicians.

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.

The people know that they need in their representative much more than talent, namely, the power to make his talent trusted.

Laws always lose in energy what the government gains in extent.

Can I say one other thing that's very important? I'm indebted to Donald Trump for a long time, we've had this problem that people disliked government. And the health care bill has shown reminded people and Donald Trump has shown people there is something a lot worse than government. It's not government. That as bad as they might have thought the government was on health care, it's now created people that the absence of government healthcare is even worse.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

When government gets too big, freedom is lost. Government is supposed to be the servant. But when a government can tax the people with no limit or restraint on what the government can take, then the government has become the master.

What counts in the end is what the government does.

My quarrel is not with the legitimate role of government but with the unlimited role of government.

It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled.

If the people wanted my head I would bow without demur. If I had lost the confidence or respect of the people I would not want to live. The tragedy of the drama is that the very opposite is true.

Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not governments. When governments are generous it is with other people’s money, other people’s safety, other people’s future.

People think that the politician is just part of a system, and whether they're lying or not doesn't matter.

I don't know what people have against government; they haven't done anything.

My first warning is to my government officers to not presume citizens as thieves.

Instead of recognizing the State as ‘the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men,’ the run of mankind, with rare exceptions, regards it not only as a final and indispensable entity, but also as, in the main, beneficent. The mass-man, ignorant of its history, regards its character and intentions as social rather than anti-social; and in that faith he is willing to put at its disposal an indefinite credit of knavery, mendacity and chicane, upon which its administrators may draw at will.

The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out of the pockets of some people for the benefit of others.

The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives.

People hired by government know who is their benefactor. People who lose their jobs or fail to get them because of the government program do not know that that is the source of their problem. The good effects are visible. The bad effects are invisible. The good effects generate votes. The bad effects generate discontent, which is as likely to be directed at private business as at the government.