William Weld Quotations

Micro managing anything is not a great role for government.

In the nineteenth century, slavery was the greatest wrong, and government never stood so tall as when it was redressing that wrong.

I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum.

Do we believe that there is equal economic opportunity out there in the real world, right now, for each and every one of these groups? If we believed in the tooth fairy, if we believed in the Easter Bunny, we might well believe that.

Natural resources are so vast that no single individual or business is going to protect them; they don't have an incentive to.

I think transportation and corrections are not the first two areas that I would go looking for massive change.

Government has a role as well in what is referred to as redistributive justice.

Government can contribute to a shared sense of purpose on the part of the citizenry; that's its highest and best application.

Government is never so noble as when it is addressing wrongs.

I think government has a major role to play in helping us with the pursuit of happiness.

Much is forgiven anyone who relieves the desperate boredom of the working press.

Opposing the free flow of goods or people is a bad idea.

The courts are truly the least dangerous of the three branches of our government.

The unemployment rate is still twice as high for blacks as for whites.

I extend that to the abortion issue, I extend that to the so-called gay rights issue, I think this is a freedom principle and consistent with the analysis in the economic area as well.

I suggest to you that increasing the size of America's economic pie - which can be achieved only if everybody has a seat at the table - is the most important challenge facing our country today.

Speaking of tax fairness, it was Senator Kerry who voted to increase the income tax on senior citizens on Social Security, earning as little as $32,000 a year.

The system that had grown up in most states is that wealthy districts with an affluent population can afford to spend a lot more on their public school systems than the poorer districts.

It's not good for government to tell people that the world owes them a living and that things are free.

It's healthy for government to be a kind of moral catalyst, using the bully pulpit of high office.

My slogan when I ran was that there is no such thing as government money, there is only taxpayer's money, and that cut pretty deep.

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government.

I don't understand the Democrats' approach to Social Security in this country, and I'm not alone.

I have come to realize that Jesse Helms stands for everything in politics that is anathema to me.

Liberals often don't see the problems, and conservatives don't see the promise, of government.

Managing people's sex lives is something that I don't think is a good role for government.

One of the functions of government is to act as a safeguard not just of property but of our liberties.

So government acts as a safeguard of our property.

There are several such issues where I have departed radically from the Republican orthodoxy.

We absolutely have to restrain concentrations of wealth in industry from spoiling the situation for everybody.

We need a complete ban on soft money, which is sort of an enveloping problem, and a ceiling on the amount of money that can be spent on a given race.

I dare say that a majority of the American people think that having a fair hearing on an issue of importance in our relations with Mexico is extremely important to our national interest, as well as theirs.

There's no Walter Cronkite to give you the final word each evening.

People aren't stupid. I mean, people remember in 1990, the unemployment rate was 10 percent. Now it's 4 _ percent. We've got 1/4 million jobs that we've created.

I think the dignity of Congress and the dignity of the country demands something more than merely censure here.

If we have major geographic areas within our continent that have a tremendous lack of economic opportunity, we found that that is going to produce instability economic, political and social.

It's completely idiot proof." I told them they've got it all wrong. I want a machine that is "idiot friendly.

We speak for all citizens of the Commonwealth when we say that society can draw great hope for the future because of the example which these young people are giving by their creative and constructive responses to the challenges which confront our communities and dedication to help those most in need.

Nobody can tell me that no changes are necessary in Washington.

The best preparation for work is not thinking about work, talking about work, or studying for work: it is work.