Government Obligations Quotes

Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.

Citizenship is basic to all other claims which individuals make on the state, or the state makes upon them.

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.

The national will is the supreme law of the Republic, and on all subjects within the limits of his constitutional powers should be faithfully obeyed by the public servant.

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.

The responsibility for keeping our commitments to veterans falls on the federal government.

From the Left comes the proposition that, given the slow economy, we should defer attending to the problem of mounting obligations - and the truly delusional idea that growing federal debt doesn't matter because we owe most of it to ourselves.

When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens.

The thing is, Obama is right that it would be a calamity for the government to default on its debt by not meeting its obligations. Such a thing has never happened and can't be allowed to happen.

The basic social contract is that citizens agree to follow the law, pay their taxes, and devote their love and loyalty to their country, and in exchange, the nation commits to preserve and protect and serve their interests, safeguard their freedom, and return to them in kind their first allegiance and loyalty.

Parents today are under a lot of stress, sometimes working two jobs just to make ends meet. They're trying to find day care for their kids and elder care for their own parents. The Federal Government shouldn't add to their worries by not living up to its obligations.

While the feds … leave Social Security off their books, the government's obligation to make benefit payments to current and near-term Social Security recipients is certainly no less real than its obligation to pay interest on its Treasury bonds.

America should meet its obligations in the form of Social Security, Medicare, our ability to pay our military, legally binding legislation that allows unemployment compensation, the judiciary, the federal court system, the federal prison system, all those kinds of things have to be paid for.

Your ability as republican volunteers, to rise to this challenge will mean that the two governments and others cannot easily hide from their obligations and their responsibility to resolve these problems.

When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of Government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free Government.

I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it.

Government loses its claim to legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its obligations.

We can't afford to lose control of our own borders or to take on new financial burdens at a time when we are not adequately providing for the jobs, the health care and the education of our own people.

What charitable 1 percenters can't do is assume responsibility - America's national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts.

The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.

Administrative tribunals did not come because anyone wanted them to come. They came because there seemed to be no other practical way of carrying on the affairs of government and discharging the duties and obligations which an increasingly complex social organization made it necessary for the government to perform....Those who have opposed the creation and extension of administrative tribunals have had the best of the argument on legal and constitutional grounds, but have been obliged to yield to an irresistible social pressure. Would it not be wise to recognize this fact, to give it a place in our legal system ... to the end that it may not become a source of tyranny and oppression?

The Federal Court is telling us that we can’t do what the Federal Government ought to be doing.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

You may say to the people, that I have received their petition. You may remind them, also, that I am acting in accordance with the constitution. It is necessary for me to defend those rights of mine that are guaranteed by that constitution, even at the sacrifice of everything that I possess, and of my own person.

I know of no mission which this Government has to perform except to protect the citizen in his life, his liberty, and his property. When it fails in these great essentials, it has failed in everything ... and whenever the Government fails ... it ought to be abolished