Responsible Governance Quotes

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it ... We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase that reluctance.

If governments did not mislead their citizens so often, there would be less need for secrecy, and if leaders knew they could not rely on keeping the public in the dark about what they are doing, they would have a powerful incentive to behave better.

We combine fiscal responsibility with social responsibility.

We just need leaders in Congress who are honest with the American people.

The better-informed we are, the more we can do to make sure what's happening is in our interests and is accountable to us.

We as a government are entitled to be criticised.

We want to live in a country where the leaders have enough respect for us to tell us the truth

Some States just have a good political culture. It’s not all greed driven.

The veto is a President's Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a checkagainst irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly.

You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public.

We have promised to do better, and no Republican concern should ever be enough to filibuster our own bill.

…one of the best ways to preserve the peace was through continuing conversations between responsible officials in different countries.

[Describing how Congress functions:] ... the way the Founding Fathers intended—not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority.

Our ethical values point one way, towards intergenerational responsibility, but our political system points another, towards the short-term horizon of the next election. We should consider introducing agents who can vote in a far-seeing and impartial way.

The Congress must regain the will to govern.

Congress must demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.

I won't be a perfect mayor, but I will be the mayor of a great city.

I understand that government should live within its means, value the money it holds in trust from you the taxpayer, avoid waste and, above all else, observe the first maxim of good government: namely, do no avoidable harm.

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another. Offices were not established to give support to particular men at the public expense. No individual wrong is, therefore, done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is a matter of right.

We need to really be careful to not just be responsive to whatever happens with Trump, but to be proactive on things people elected us to do.

Keeping a lid on taxes is not just good for the taxpayer. It's a powerful way to force government to be more accountable, set priorities and spend smarter. Let me repeat that: more accountable, set priorities and spend smarter - that's what we need to be about.

The best system is the most accountable and transparent system

The essential nature of a democracy compels it to insist that individual power of all kinds, political, economic, or intellectual, shall not be perversely and irresponsibly exercised.

A mature and great power will make measured and limited use of its power.