Margaret Thatcher Quotes

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

I believe that smaller government is better government. But I also believe that in the areas where government does play a legitimate role, we should demand that it is done better.

We can't do without government, but we do need it to be more effective.

The question today is not whether the government is too small or too small, but whether or not it works

"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others.

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

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

No one has yet succeeded in reducing the size or scope of the federal government.

The issue isn't more or less government. It's dumb vs. smart 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.

Good government has to mean less government.

Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.

The debate on how to shrink the federal government is at the core of our problem of government not doing its job.

While I can see how the government has, at times, wasted taxpayers' money, and I can admit that too often its programs are ineffective, I also can see the good that government does.

Obama is trying to paint us as a caricature, as if we're some bizarre individualists who are hardcore libertarians. It's a false dichotomy and intellectually lazy. Of course we believe in government. We think government should do what it does really well, but that it has limits.

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

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

The fact is, my friends, most Americans don't want more government. They want less 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.

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.

Can government really be active and, at the same time, limited? History suggests otherwise.

The problem is that the energy in the Republican Party today is not directed at how to make government work better. It is directed against government.

I will support vigorously whoever commits to reduce the size of government the most.

I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

I'm a Democrat, and there are an important group of things only the government can do. But let us be clear that for most of the world, what they most need is less government.