We campaigned on the fact that we were going to have to take difficult decisions because of the state of the public finances. When we got into government we discovered that actually the public finances were in an even worse state than we thought.

Unfortunately corruption is widespread in government agencies and public enterprises. Our political system promotes nepotism and wasting money. This has undermined our legal system and confidence in the functioning of the state. One of the consequences is that many citizens don't pay their taxes.

You can have a revolution wherever you like except in a government office even were the world to come to an end you'd have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.

It's counterintuitive but the most divisive arrangement is when the same party controls both Congress and the presidency a situation encountered in eight of the past 10 years. With government unified under a single party the minority has the least possible incentive to cooperate with the majority.

Everybody in America is going to have to sacrifice to help us rebuild the Gulf Coast. Every government program every individual we are all going to have to sacrifice.

We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.

We don't need bigger government. We need to shrink the size of government.

We should not have the U.S. government buying stock in American industries - the financial industry or any other industry.

You know when Republicans were in charge we doubled the debt. But now our concern is the Democrats are in charge and they're tripling the debt. So really our concern is that we want smaller government.

In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers always on trial for their political lives always required to court their restless constituents.