Quotes About Reform

Balance the federal budget now, not 15 years from now, not 20 years from now, but now. And throw out the entire federal tax system, replace it with a fair tax, a consumption tax, that by all measurements is just that. It's fair.

The Tea Party is clearing gunk out of the fuel lines of this country. It started with throwing out Democrats, but the Republicans are going to be next. We're doing what needs to be done for the sake of the country.

At what point do we accept the fact that throwing money at the problem isn't the solution?

The return of democracy in our land has indeed thrown the problems of development into bolder relief.

I'm not one who thinks that people should be locked up and thrown away the key.

I really feel it's time to dissolve the current relationship of governor and lieutenant governor by running as a ticket.

When I was released from prison 15 years ago, I was given a $25 check and a bus ticket and told to start my life over.

Major political parties have a role, but they are incapable of initiating fundamental change because they are fundamentally tied to the status quo. They are the status quo.

Health care has gotten really weird politically. We've sort of tied ourselves in knots on this issue in a way that we don't do... for criminal-justice reform or tax policy or climate policy.

I've been around the government system and believe me it's built to spend. You've got to change the system, otherwise it's like asking a cultivator to do what a combine does, it just doesn't fit, it won't get it done. You've got to change the system.

Let's create a legal system that can work.

Early on in my tenure, I was given a cartoon that circulated widely at the UN. The cartoon showed dozens of people listening to a speech. In the first panel, the speaker asks, "Who wants change?" and all audience members enthusiastically raise their hands. In the second panel, the speaker refines his question, asking, "Who wants to change?" This time, each audience member looks toward the ground, demurring.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

Many are friends to the success of reformation, not to reformation.

Even in my own time and in my own life, I have witnessed a revolution.

You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer.

Challenging schools to treat their students as customers with a choice, instead of inmates serving time.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The time is now for Congress to address health care in America.

Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution. We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry it to its time.

It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!

In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it.

If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.

It's time to recognize that the EU is beyond reform and deserves to be put out of its misery.