Patrick McHenry Quotes

I'm being driven crazy by people who are obsessed with limiting the scope of government, but feel perfectly free to demand that government get involved in women's most personal choices.

It's sad that we vote for and elect officials to run our state, run our country, over social issues. I don't believe they belong in politics.

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.

…people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things the government does for others as socialism.

Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good.

The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.

The left’s reflex is that if something is good then the government ought to provide it, and some conservatives are falling into the left’s political trap.

There is no evidence that government under Republicans will shrink. It's simply a question of what the government will do and who will benefit.

We should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government.

Conservatives want smaller government. They want to focus on market-based solutions wherever one can. They want to have as little regulation as possible. But in general, they recognize that government must play an important role for a society to operate.

While Democrats fussed with the details of health care reforms, conservatives spent months telling the nation that the real issue is freedom, that what's on the line is American liberty itself.

Every dollar I can't commit to my company that's paid in taxes is paying a government that I believe is too big and doing way too much that I don't want done.

Mr. Obama is proud of his belief that government knows best. When he told the world that individuals were not totally responsible for their personal success, that government has a major role in it, many Americans were taken aback. But Barack Obama sincerely believes that.

It's easier to sell cotton candy than it is to sell broccoli to somebody, but the broccoli is better for you, and the same thing with a limited government.

We need a Federal government that does what the government needs to do and stops doing what the government ought not to be doing.

While many of Mr. Obama's ideas warrant skepticism, conservative opposition to any expanded role for government is a mistake.

I do think that the elections of 2010 and 2012 are going to determine the trajectory of the country. Either we're going to be aspiring and improving opportunities based on freedom and responsibility, or we're going to go down the path that dictates and mandates a dependency on government.

Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.

Foreign aid is not something the vast majority of Americans support, but definitely not conservatives.

President Reagan was elected on the promise of getting government off the backs of the people and now he demands that government wrap itself around the waists of the people.

Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness.

The Republicans have lost their standards; they've lost their principles... Really, that's why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me... They have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government.

Talk radio is an asset to our nation because it encourages strong and healthy debate about public policy, and there is no reason to affect that debate with government legislation.

When government grows, it breaks the family.