If a tax hike makes it to my desk, I'll veto it in less time than it takes Vanna White to turn the letters V-E-T-O! - Ronald Reagan

Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Doing for people what they can, and ought to do for themselves, is a dangerous experiment,” the great labor leader Samuel Gompers said. “In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends on their own initiative.” The classic “liberal” believed individuals should be masters of their own destiny and the least government is the best government; these are precepts of freedom and self-reliance that are at the root of the American way and the American spirit.

I was lucky. If I ever tired all I had to do was look over my shoulder. Age has its privileges and on this day of memory and reflection I hope you will indulge me in recalling some very special people. I remember a small woman with auburn hair and unquenchable optimism. Her name was Nellie Reagan and she believed with all her heart that there was no such thing as accidents in this life, everything was part of God's plan. If something went wrong you didn't wring your hands, you rolled up your sleeves. And I remember a story-telling salesman with the Irish gift of laughter and a certain American restlessness. In the spirit of this forebearers who had settled on the endless sea of grass that was the Illinois prairie before the turn of the century, Jack Reagan took his family to many new beginnings. Perhaps that was the route of my belief shared with Thomas Paine, that we Americans of all people were uniquely equipped to begin the world over.