Mike Pence Quotes

I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more.

Folks know that while I respect Barack Obama and do not cheap-shot the president, I am very skeptical of his big government, nanny-state philosophy.

The conservative movement today is like that tall ship with its proud captain: strong, accomplished but veering off course into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government republicanism.

Well, in the past, the size of government was one of the more fundamental dividing lines between Right and Left. The Right was supposed to represent the small government philosophy - limited spending, low taxes. Obviously, things have shifted.

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.

Who knew, in 2000, that compassionate conservatism meant bigger government, unrestricted government spending, government intrusion in personal matters, government ineptitude, and cronyism in disaster relief? Who knew, in 2000, that the only bill the president would veto, six years later, would be one on funding stem-cell research? A more accurate term for Mr. Bush's political philosophy might be incontinent conservatism.

To bring about a genuine political realignment, Republicans must kill the Government Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs - the very Goose they have fought so hard and long to possess.

It's almost impossible to make the case that Bush is a conservative. That may be good; that may be bad.

I just consider myself a Republican, none of this hyphenated stuff. I was a mainstream conservative Republican, and most people are in that category.

I am a Republican. I'm loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.

Conservatives are winning offices, and champions of big government are cleaning out their desks right now.

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

There's room in the Republican Party for anyone who wants to be a part of the values that we espouse when it comes to the role of government, free enterprise, free markets.

If you like big government, move to Massachusetts.

If you look at what is happening in Republican conventions across the country, they are energized. And the message is really the same - that is, big government is a problem, spending is a problem.

If you feel the government should leave you alone, you're a Republican. If you think the job of the government is to go push people around and take things for you, then you're a Democrat.

While I am a Republican, I'm a conservative first and I'm a constitutional conservative, and in Washington some of the Republicans are oftentimes just as much a problem as some of the Democrats, and we need to elect more senators like Senator Rubio and others who will stand proudly as conservatives to do the right thing for our country.

I think in the end the big issue is that the private sector still needs more help. And the answer is not more big government. I know in my state our reforms allowed us to protect firefighters, police officers, and teachers.

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

'Hello my name is the Republican Party and I got a problem. I'm addicted to spending and big government.' I'd like one of them just to stand up and say that.

I believe that government is too large, costs too much, spends too much, and has too much regulatory power in our lives.

Conservatism is about the basic rights of individuals. God created us. As far as the government goes, the Founding Fathers based the Constitution off of Christian values. It goes hand-in-hand. As far as the Republican Party? I felt connected to it because individual freedom should not be legislated by the federal government.

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.

The country badly needs to have a right-of-center political party, grounded in traditional values that the Republican Party represented till it didn't.

No matter what the issue is, conservative principles are always better for people than big-government, liberal principles.