A Quote by P. J. O'Rourke

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.

P. J. O'Rourke

Quote Topics

Advertising Against Anybody Budget Congress Contains Convict Deceptive Enough Extortion Federal Fraud Glance Government Illegal Impure Ingredients Jail Know Law Limits Looked Need Nutshell Perjury Practices Product Selling Should Tell Term Term Limits Were Would Would Be

Quote Author

P. J. O'Rourke
American - Comedian
Born: November 14, 1947

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

P. J. O'Rourke

I get so ticked off at you intellectually lazy people who think that the government is God, that every dollar they get or spend is somehow sacred. There is more fraud and waste and misuse. If the federal government were held accountable to the law as corporations are held accountable, half the federal government would be in prison.

Rush Limbaugh

If the federal government is dumb enough to give it to us, we'll be smart enough to take it. In Minnesota's case, we are not a net taker of money from the federal government.

Tim Pawlenty

The worst thing the federal government could do is to increase the size, reach and cost of government. If government failed in its response to the hurricane, the answer is not more inefficient government.

Cal Thomas

The government doesn't save enough, it borrows too much and it doesn't invest enough in the next generation. It's like what parents are trying to get their kids not to do, but if they look at the federal government, that's what they're doing.

Maya MacGuineas

A federal government with enough money to buy iPads for local gym teachers is not a federal government that has been cut to the bone.

Heather Mac Donald

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.

Ronald Reagan

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

P. J. O'Rourke

Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier.

Ron Paul

Every year the Federal Government wastes billions of dollars as a result of overpayments of government agencies, misuse of government credit cards, abuse of the Federal entitlement programs, and the mismanagement of the Federal bureaucracy.

Chris Chocola

It is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact. To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation.

John C. Calhoun

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

Thomas Jefferson

In a clean break from the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. That is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.

Paul Ryan

I was naive enough to believe it would be enough to replace the government. Well, I made fun of the people in the government and then realized that even if we got rid of them, they were replaced by exactly the same guys.

Damon Albarn

If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.