Mitch Daniels Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

"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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Good government has to mean less government.

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

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.

The fact is, my friends, most Americans don't want more government. They want less government.

Liberals often don't see the problems, and conservatives don't see the promise, of government.

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

Paul Ryan says he's for smaller government, and he's funded every big government idea that there is.

If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.

The best view of big government is in the rearview mirror as we leave it behind.

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.

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.