Quotes About Reform

People are afraid of an unorganized, wasteful government.

What we must do is to sit down together as reasonable people and make our government do what is right, and stop doing what may be wrong-headed or wasteful.

If everyone in America can easily see who and what their lawmakers are requesting taxpayer money for, we can keep elected officials honest, end the days of political, special interest favors, and reduce wasteful spending.

We pledge to you that we will create jobs. End economic uncertainty and make America more competitive. We will cut Washington wasteful spending and reduce the size of government. And we will reform Congress and restore your trust in government.

As Speaker of the North Carolina House, I've proven I'm a problem-solver, balancing budgets, cutting wasteful spending, and providing teachers with historic pay raises.

Shouldn't one of the goals of prison be getting as many of the inmates as possible back out into the world to be responsible citizens? Aren't we just wasting generations of human potential by keeping over two million people behind bars?

It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than watch it accumulate.

It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new 'solution' to society's 'problems.'

I watched Reagan turn around the country by lowering taxes and controlling spending, and I'm applying the same principles.

Drug reformers need to be hyper-vigilant. I understand that when you've been oppressed so long, so thirsty for truth, that when someone comes along and gives you a sip of water, you think that they're the savior. But in that water there may be cyanide.

In pursuing reform, we have to navigate uncharted waters. We may also have to confront protracted problems because we will have to shake up vested interests.

You might as well try and dam Niagara Falls with toothpicks as to stop the reform wave sweeping our land.

If I could wave a magic wand, I'd break up the banking system.

We don't have a good legal justification for breaking up the banking system. But if I could wave a magic wand, I'd break up the banking system.

I kept trying, proposing, pushing... If you want to succeed, you cannot leave work half done, and unfortunately, many things were left half done. The choice was made not to launch a second wave of economic reforms that I was proposing.

If I could wave a magic wand, we would eliminate income tax; we would eliminate corporate tax. We would abolish the IRS, and we could replace all of it with one federal consumption tax.

Democrats are just as wrong to insist the law is perfect, that the law doesn't have things that need to be fixed, and to pretend that the law did wave a magic wand and make everything in the health care system fixed.

We have too many in Washington who are all too willing to just go along with the status quo and not make any waves.

It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.

You know, I'm one of millions of undocumented people in this country who are living kind of under the shadows. And in many ways, coming out, it was my way of - at the end of the day, I think we have to tell the truth about this immigration system. And because of that, I had to tell the truth about myself.

We are a coalition government, and that limits our options in some ways. Privatization happens to be one such area.

We cannot reform institutional racism or systemic policies if we are not actively engaged. It's not enough to simply complain about injustice; the only way to prevent future injustice is to create the society we would like to see, one where we are all equal under the law.

I look at the corruption in Albany and we cannot accept that.

We cannot let it be said of modern Australia that the colour of your skin determines whether or not you end up in jail.