Aside from the poor example it sets, the federal government enables reckless spending on public-employee pensions by offering hope of assistance from Washington if things get bad enough.
My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.
Our democracy is predicated on the belief that our government should be accessible by the people. We cannot allow ourselves to give in to fear or shy away from interacting with the public.
My greatest fear is speaking in public. You meet, like, um, people who just concentrate on me. I'd rather not have everyone focus on me.
I know terrorism is real. And I know fear of it distorts public judgment. Terrorism is like a chronic illness. We have to learn to contain it and live with it.
I'm just a guy who happens to work in public from time to time. I've built a reputation as an established comic, not as a celebrity - a celebrity is someone who is famous but doesn't do anything.
I'm just not a private person. It's not like I do things because I want things to be public; it's just that's my way of expressing myself, and I happen to be very famous.
I feel strongly about HIV/AIDS and children because I'm a famous singer, a public figure, and I'm a female and a mother. I have the responsibility and the passion to help out and do whatever I can.
Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.
I have a Christian worldview and so it shapes the way that I view issues. I don't apologize for that, and I don't think people of faith ought to shrink away from being in the public arena.
Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
In Barack Obama, Democrats have put forth a man of strong religious faith who is comfortable connecting his spiritual life to his public role as a policymaker.
Americans cannot maintain their essential faith in government if there are two Americas, in which the private sector's work subsidizes the disproportionate benefits of this new public sector elite.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
We can only restore faith in government if the state itself becomes an efficient, effective and transparent ally of the people. Bureaucratic inefficiencies, abuses of power and the misappropriation of public funds must end.
More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.
Obviously there aren't enough Latino roles out there - I wish there were more of them - but there's got to be more in the future. I'm sure there will be more in the future. The public is asking for it.
One of the earliest institutions in every New England community was a pair of stocks. The first public building was a meeting-house, but often before any house of God was builded, the devil got his restraining engine.
You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
You can't divorce religious belief and public service I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
All civil rulers, as such, are the ordinance and ministers of God; and they are all, by the nature of their office, and in their respective spheres and stations, bound to consult the public welfare.
