Lamar Alexander Quotes

"I think we do better as a country when we go step by step toward a goal, and the goal in this case should be reducing health care costs."

"We are the only country in the world that has taken people from so many different backgrounds, which is a great achievement by itself, but an even greater achievement is that we have turned all of that variety and diversity into unity."

"Put too many one-size-fits-all jackets on Americans and the place explodes."

"As Governor, I could think of only one way to unify our State that was made up of so many different climates, political beliefs and people, and that was our music."

"When I get close to an election, I look to 'Lamar Alexander's Little Plaid Book' for inspiration."

"September 11 is one of our worst days but it brought out the best in us. It unified us as a country and showed our charitable instincts and reminded us of what we stood for and stand for."

"We hear a lot about rebuilding Detroit, and we just spent $70 billion to bail out the auto industry - well, they need to be cost competitive, too. If they have high-cost energy, those suppliers are going to move to Japan or Mexico instead of Michigan and Tennessee."

"I need to know the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right now."

"Sooner or later, I need to begin to do what any candidate does in a presidential race; I need to begin to win."

"It is a rare American who does not have some story about how music has made our lives richer and more interesting, how it has changed our moods, brought out the best in our character and even sometimes helped us earn a living."

"The job of mayor and Governor is becoming more and more like the job of university president, which I used to be; it looks like you are in charge, but you are not."

"We do all the appropriating. They do not do any of it down at the White House. They send a budget up here, and we don't have to pay any attention it to at all. We do what we want to do."

"If Mr. Bush and Mr. Forbes don't get most of the votes, they should be arrested for wasting money."

"There are a growing number of conservatives and Republicans who, while they support the president and support the war in Iraq, wonder how many of these nation-building wars we're going to engage in and what the parameters of that are."

"The goal with a big piece of social legislation is to have a bipartisan result, so the country will accept it."

"If you have a solution to immigration, it is possible to come home and defend it."

"The composition of the primary is so different than when I was first elected governor in 1978."

"I think people are looking for a president who has views and who sticks to those views. So, I think Governor Romney, Governor Perry, Governor Huntsman are all terrific candidates. I think we got a chance to elect a real, executive leader."

"I think higher education is over-regulated."

"When I was governor, I was looking for a way to unify our state. I realized music is about the only thing that unifies Tennessee."

"President Bush and I had asked Congress to appropriate a half-billion dollars to school vouchers. We didn't get it, and we were disappointed. But we did not go out and form a corporation to pay for it. That would have been a problem."

"If the administration asks for $5 and Congress appropriates $4, that's what they get. If the government creates a subterfuge by going outside the government to raise money through a private entity, that's a violation of the law."

"Most people who get in trouble in politics usually get in trouble because they're disconnected from the people they serve, and I don't think anybody in Tennessee, even people who won't vote for me, would accuse me of that."

"I love Washington, D.C.; I love this country, but I think over the last hundred years we've built up would I call an arrogant empire: people who think the rest of us are too stupid to make our own decisions."

"Primarily, we need to change 100 years of thinking, where we try to extend the promise of American life by moving things to Washington, and let's move it the other way: less of Washington, more from ourselves."

"I think, I think we need a Republican president from the real world to remind ourselves sometimes of what we need to do."

"I think there's plenty of evidence that we need to stop spewing so much carbon into the air, that we're contributing to climate change and that we ought to look for alternatives."

"To power the country by building 186,000 fifty-story wind turbines - and running 19,000 miles of new transmission lines - just seems impractical and preposterous compared to the idea of building a hundred new nuclear facilities primarily on the sites we already have."

"I've got a new rule. It'll be rule No. 312. If it's three days before a campaign, don't believe anything new you hear about anybody."

"In the Senate, where 60 votes are required to do anything important, you have to work with your colleagues on both sides of the aisle."