Top 1200 Federal Government Quotes & Sayings

I want to bring accountability to the federal government. I want the federal government to respect the states.

Government is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that's at the state, local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look, at some point, you cease being a free economy, and you become a government economy. And we've got to stop that.

Generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the state or federal government must do on your behalf.

But did the Founding Fathers ever intend for the federal government to involve itself in education, health care or retirement benefits? The answer, quite clearly, is no. The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8 - which contains the general welfare clause - seeks to restrain federal government, not expand it.

In my life, I've seen everything, and one thing I know for sure is you can't win in the federal court. You're going against the government of the United States. You don't beat a federal court, a federal judge, and the FBI - there's no way.

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.

The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was meant to inhibit only the federal government, not the states. The framers, as The Federalist Papers attest (see No. 28), saw the state militias as forces that might be summoned into action against the federal government itself, if it became tyrannical.

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.

There is so much chaos and dysfunction going on with the federal government that Dallas can't wait any longer for federal help.

The federal government has the responsibility to protect the nation's public health, to protect us from foreign threats. And it [Zika] really is an illness that we are seeing arrive from abroad. So it is a threat to public health, and it is the federal government's job to cooperate in this.

Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked.

If the federal government can mandate what we have to spend our own money on, then the federal government can make us buy something even if we are morally opposed to paying for it.

The proposed constitution, therefore, even when tested by the rules laid down by its antagonists, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal, and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them again, it is federal, not national; and finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal, nor wholly national.

The founders had a strong distrust for centralized power in a federal government. So they created a government with checks and balances. This was to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.

Strictly enforce the scale of "fixed responsibility." The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community, finally the county, and, in a disaster or emergency, the state. Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.

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.

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.

The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

The success of those doctrines would also subvert the Federal Constitution, change the character of the Federal Government, and destroy our rights in respect to slavery.

We have become bound by a political straitjacket that frames every debate: Too much federal government. Yet our forefathers forged this system for us. The federal government can accomplish what the states, acting alone or even in concert, cannot.

It [the Constitution] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted.

One of the basic philosophical tenets of conservatism - which says that the more power devolves from the federal government to the states, the greater individual freedom grows - is just flatly contradicted by crucial junctures in the country's life, most conspicuously in the 1860s and 1960s, when it's been the federal government that's interceded against the states to secure individual freedom.

I don't believe the federal government should be snooping into American citizens' cell phones without a warrant issued by a federal judge. You cannot give the federal government extraordinary powers to eavesdrop without a warrant. It's simply un-American.

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.

Individual people shouldn't be fearful, because by and large our government, the federal government - people always talk; obviously, they don't trust the feds, whatever. The federal government and local communities have done a pretty good job at keeping us safe.

We have reached a moment in our history where we think that every problem in America has to have a federal government solution. Every problem in America does not have a federal government solution. In fact, most problems in America do not have a federal government solution and many of them are created by the federal government to begin with.

Indicate which principles you support regarding affirmative action and discrimination. 1. The federal government should discontinue affirmative action programs. 2. The federal government should prosecute cases of discrimination in the public sector. 3. The federal government should prosecute cases of discrimination in the private sector.

We need the federal government to assert their supremacy over the immigration issue and make it clear to state legislatures, cowboy cops, and the American people that the federal government is in charge and effectively enforcing and regulating immigration.

The federal government gets a lot press, and that's what the media talks about, but your state and local governments, in many ways, have more impact on your life than the federal government does.

How can you raise the level of consciousness on this? How can you get the federal government to take the responsibility? Florida does not have a foreign policy. This is a federal policy or absence of federal policy. It's so clear that we're not being treated fairly. We have to come up with a solution. It hurts your head trying to figure out what to do.

People - particularly in the Southeast, Georgia, my district, all across the state - they don't want the federal government to have the ability, at times whenever the federal government wants to declare an emergency, to start going around and confiscating people's guns.

The federal government is the balance wheel of the federal system, and the federal system means using counterweights.

When it comes to federal programs, even if states are discriminating, the federal government should not.

I think you may see again a rise at the federal government level for a - a call for the federal constitutional amendment, because people want to make sure that this definition of marriage remains secure, because after all, the family is the fundamental unit of government.

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.

American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government.

The federal government neither has the power to site transmission lines, nor do we build them. That's done, as people know, in their own communities. The siting decisions and the permitting is done at the local level, or by state governments if it's interstate in nature. And federal government - this is one area we have no authority.

After 2003, we lowered taxes across the board. And by 2004, revenue to the federal government grew. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan cut taxes dramatically. And by the end of the decade, revenue coming in the federal government had doubled.

It's federal jurisdiction, so the federal government can approve pipelines.

I think the federal government should be doing only what the Constitution says it should be. We don't have authority under the federal Constitution to have a big federal criminal justice system.

The money has to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend that money better than the private sector will spend it.

The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.

I don't think the federal government should be involved in making life work, right? I mean, the enumerated powers - the state level is fine. The local level's fine. But not - I do not want the federal government trying to make my life work.

California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. We won't wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it's the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western states involved. I think there's not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment.

Not only is it possible to do lean startup in federal government, but it's the most effective way to drive change in the federal government.

The tenth amendment said the federal government is supposed to only have powers that were explicitly given in the Constitution. I think the federal government's gone way beyond that. The Constitution never said that you could have a Federal Reserve that would have $2.8 trillion in assets. We've gotten out of control.

We can't be playing around with these issues [Zika disease], because this can become very serious very quickly, as we have seen in Brazil and other countries. The funds are going to be used at the state level, but it is important for the federal government to cooperate in the federal government's role.

They want the federal government controlling the Social Security, like it's some kind of federal program.

But the federal government, our collective government, has responsibilities that none of these other levels of government can fulfill; and chief among these is national defense.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a federal government that trusts its people with their money and freedom, outlining this limited, non-intrusive federal government in...the Constitution, leaving the other powers to people...or to the states.

The federal government was responsible for building the levees, engineering the levees, and consequentially, the federal government is responsible for repairing the damage that has been done, which has not been completed yet.

The federal government has gone too far on many nonessential regulations that are harming small businesses. Employers are rightly concerned about the costs of these regulations - so they stop hiring, stop spending, and start saving for a bill from the federal government.

The powers of government exercised locally derive from a federal law authorizing government by consent in local affairs only, unless those affairs are otherwise governed by federal law.

We developed at the local school district level probably the best public school system in the world. Or it was until the Federal government added Federal interference to Federal financial aid and eroded educational quality in the process.

There are people who oppose a federal Constitutional amendment because they think that the law of family should be made by the states. I can see a legitimate argument there. I think it's mistaken, however, because the federal government, through the decisions of life-tenured federal judges, has already taken over that area.

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.

Certainly, cutting spending is one of the things that can transcend to the federal government. I mean, I think the federal government has grown by leaps and bounds, and they need to look where do they need to cut.

If the federal government won't secure the border, the State of Arizona will step in to complement federal efforts in a constitutional manner and protect the security of its citizens.

But again, you know, the views that we've expressed are transferring power back from the federal government to the states, giving Alaska an incredible opportunity to expand its economy, especially at a time when our federal government is coming close to bankruptcy. So that is a broad-based appeal. It's not an extreme view.

My battles have been against federal actions that exceed the powers our Founders granted to the federal government in the constitution.