Sam Brownback Quotes

I think the real needs in the country are for cultural renewal.

- Sam Brownback

I support strongly the expansion of nuclear power because that is one of the key ways of getting electricity generated and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

- Sam Brownback

I went to law school with a plan of going back home and practicing law to support my farming, and Dad said, 'There's just not room here for us.' So I took off to practice law and got involved in some politics, and the rest just moved on forward.

- Sam Brownback

There is a disturbing reincarnation of socialist and nationalist dictatorships raising their heads around the world and even in our own back yard. You see it in places like Venezuela and Bolivia, stoked in no small part by Cuba, and also in Central Asia, and troubling trends in Russia and China.

- Sam Brownback

I do not support a North American Union. I disagree fundamentally with that, and I think the United States should be governing itself and not being governed by multilateral unions, the United Nations.

- Sam Brownback

One of the greatest gifts God ever gave to humanity was that of liberty. We love freedom and bloom under it. We cannot and should not try to force people to live by a certain religious code. To do so negates our free will.

- Sam Brownback

Let's create a legal system that can work.

- Sam Brownback

I do think the Obama agenda is the furthest left agenda we've seen since probably LBJ and the Great Society. And the differences have been that instead of him trying to go center-left, he's gone - in my estimation - more left. He's shown the country a much more aggressive liberal, more European style agenda, and that's on a center-right country.

- Sam Brownback

BRAC originated in the 1960s under President Kennedy as the Department of Defense (DOD) had to realign its base structure after World War II and the Korean War. At that time, the DOD was able to close bases without congressional interference, and 60 bases were closed in the 1960s.

- Sam Brownback

Our focus is on helping people develop the skills to find and keep a job. Instead of focusing on a war against poverty, we will focus on fighting for the poor among us by offering them hope and opportunity.

- Sam Brownback

I think the United Nations is a useful format to discuss matters, but I think it's a weak institution in being able to carry out matters and, in many respects even, it has been harmful on things like human rights.

- Sam Brownback

Prioritizing spending and maximizing the effectiveness of taxpayer dollars is absolutely essential. We must draw the line, realigning programs when necessary and also eliminating failed programs.

- Sam Brownback

I enjoyed working with Ted Kennedy.

- Sam Brownback

Federal waste is a grave disservice to hardworking taxpayers across our great nation, and yet our governmental bureaucracies are riddled with it - whether through unnecessary, duplicative, inefficient, outdated, or failed agencies and programs.

- Sam Brownback

I have carried bills concerning Sudan. I've carried bills concerning Congo. I've carried bills concerning North Korea and Iran and Iraq.

- Sam Brownback

I think we have lost track of a core Republican principle of limited government and balancing budgets and restraining federal spending. We have got to change the system.

- Sam Brownback

This is a bipartisan effort. This is just good common sense. This is where the public wants us to go. They want us to not be so dependent on foreign oil.

- Sam Brownback

Jon Kyl did a really good job of presenting a case and moving issues. John McCain probably is one of the more effective legislators, getting things on through the process. I always thought, too - and this may seem kind of odd - Richard Shelby was just an effective guy a lot of times at stopping things.

- Sam Brownback

I do a number of things working on human rights issues, prison recidivism rates, and then I also push and have worked a lot on the social issues of rebuilding the family.

- Sam Brownback

I'm a Ronald Reagan conservative, I'm an economic conservative, I'm strong military. But I also voice and speak and work hard on the social issues.

- Sam Brownback

I want to expand the compassionate conservative agenda. I believe life begins in the womb, and we should protect it. But it extends to a child in Darfur or someone living in poverty.

- Sam Brownback

Consider this: The United States held its first presidential election in 1789. It marked the first peaceful transfer of executive power between parties in the fourth presidential election in 1801, and it took another 200 years' worth of presidential elections before the courts had to settle an election.

- Sam Brownback

I've served on the International Relations Committee.

- Sam Brownback

When the Taiwan Relations Act passed in 1979, our biggest concern was preventing the use of military force against Taiwan. Little did we know that our friends on Taiwan could so effectively use the space created by our friendship to revolutionize their political system.

- Sam Brownback

Everybody will say that they're not opposed to immigration; they're opposed to illegal immigration. That's what I'm saying.

- Sam Brownback

It is time for the government of China to stop holding innocent religious figures in captivity merely for peacefully protesting China's occupation of Tibet.

- Sam Brownback

I voted yes for ANWR, and I would support those in other places, environmentally sound.

- Sam Brownback

The moral argument is that we give big business a huge tax break, and why do we do it? To get their jobs.

- Sam Brownback

I strongly support an 'all-of-the-above' energy policy that includes additional development of wind, clean coal, and bio-fuels.

- Sam Brownback

As the Cold War melts into history, our first concern should be the preservation and extension of human rights and democracy.

- Sam Brownback

America's a faith-based experiment as a country. We should celebrate and invite faith. And our motto is, 'In God We Trust.' This isn't something that divides; this is something that pulls together and lifts us up.

- Sam Brownback

Along with Senator Lieberman and others, I introduced the Energy Security Bill to use existing technologies with a variety of tax incentives to reduce our dependence on oil.

- Sam Brownback

My mother was a union member. She was a mail carrier, a rural mail carrier. She called herself a 'postal packin' grandma' for a good period of time.

- Sam Brownback

I would not, under any circumstances, try to impose my personal faith and belief on the rest of the country. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's appropriate. But freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion. And I think that anything we can do to promote the idea that people should express their faith is a good thing.

- Sam Brownback

Everybody has values. Now, you know it may be formed in a secular setting, it may be formed in an intellectual setting, but everybody comes forward with values.

- Sam Brownback

We need more children raised in the optimum situation, which is between a mom and a dad bonded together for life.

- Sam Brownback

A democracy thrives on diversity. Tyranny oppresses it.

- Sam Brownback

My wife and I are raising five children, and it's tough between two people, let alone with one that's working full-time and is stressed out and coming home to a lot of difficulties.

- Sam Brownback

I believe we are created in the image of God for a particular purpose, and I believe that with all my heart.

- Sam Brownback

I'd just come through cancer in 1995. Which really changed my soul. It really did. It changed me... It made my faith alive - and real. God's real.

- Sam Brownback

The growth in ethanol and biodiesel is something that I have worked on since I was secretary of agriculture in Kansas. I would like to see a lot more progress, because I think there is a real score to be made on this.

- Sam Brownback

Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.

- Sam Brownback

Kansas is great - and great for America, when, more and more, we honor every human life everywhere.

- Sam Brownback

The right to keep and bear arms is a right that Kansans hold dear. The people of Kansas have repeatedly and overwhelmingly reaffirmed their commitment to protecting this fundamental right.

- Sam Brownback

Every human - especially the most vulnerable, the unborn, the infirm, those ravaged by age and those desperate in despair - should be protected in law, loved, and told repeatedly of their incredible beauty and worth.

- Sam Brownback

Conservatives sometimes forget that limiting government is not an end in itself but a means to a better society.

- Sam Brownback

Immigration is a volatile issue, but we're in the middle of it now, and probably the worst thing to do is to not do anything. Everybody recognizes the current system is not working the way we want it to work. It has huge flaws to it; need to do something.

- Sam Brownback

Today, as we look back on the history of our nation and take note of how far we have come as a people, we are reminded that we owe a great debt to those who fought valiantly for the freedoms that we easily take for granted.

- Sam Brownback

I went to a number of foreign countries, and during whenever I went, I would try to go to an orphanage or a home for children. And I was seeing thousands of kids around the world that needed homes.

- Sam Brownback

Budgets are matters of priority and prioritizing. It's a high priority.

- Sam Brownback

I have been a long-term environmental advocate for the agriculture industry. I have particularly tried to push carbon farming or carbon sequestration.

- Sam Brownback

We must take proactive steps to promote democracy and human rights abroad.

- Sam Brownback

I was in the trade field as White House fellow in the first Bush administration.

- Sam Brownback

I do think there's a lot more we can do on the life agenda.

- Sam Brownback

Frankly, one of the problems we have in the country is we're not forming enough families. And that is hurting our economic work, and it's hurting our economic projections, because the best place for a child is within a strong family unit.

- Sam Brownback

The Founding Fathers of our nation believed in the people. They created a new nation based on the radical notion that the people could be free and trusted - that the nation would be great if you trusted the people to be good.

- Sam Brownback

An unlimited America was the vision for the nation set forth by our Founding Fathers. It is the vision enshrined in those two great charters of freedom: our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Many of America's most intractable problems stem from the fact that we have strayed from that vision - and lost direction.

- Sam Brownback

We must do everything we can to be more aggressive in confronting Syria about what they are doing in Iraq.

- Sam Brownback

As we consider the fast pace of scientific and technological progress in our modern world, we must not lose our moral compass and give way to 'free market eugenics'.

- Sam Brownback

Beijing, much as it has done with Hong Kong, persists in equating 'people power' with instability.

- Sam Brownback

Unborn children do not have a voice, but they are young members of the human family. It is time to look at the unborn child, and recognize that it is really a young human, who can feel pain and should be treated with care.

- Sam Brownback

At my core, what I think we need to do is to get the basics right again. We need to rebuild our family structure, stay away from redefining marriage, and stand by marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

- Sam Brownback

Our culture is at its best when we protect and encourage the weakest. Every life - at every stage, in every place - has a dignity beyond our imagining.

- Sam Brownback

In the aftermath of September 11, it has been made clear to us that our foreign policy can no longer afford to narrowly focus on short-term benefits. For our nation's long-term security, we must be active in promoting American values abroad through our foreign policy.

- Sam Brownback

Before 9/11, our defense policy was based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights; we will never be an aggressor.

- Sam Brownback

I love serving in the government. I love serving in the Senate.

- Sam Brownback

I love Canada. Canada is a great neighbour. Canada has been a great friend and neighbor for many, many years.

- Sam Brownback

I will sign pro life bills. But what people are interested in is what we can do to create jobs, grow the economy, and keep our costs under control.

- Sam Brownback

I am one who believes that the market, properly incentivized, can consistently outperform government regulation on achieving objectives.

- Sam Brownback

The CARFA Act is about accountability in the federal government: making sure that taxpayers are getting their money's worth and not being defrauded. This is a bipartisan concept, and it is worthy of broad support across the Congress.

- Sam Brownback

I believe in the sanctity of marriage.

- Sam Brownback

Many of Reagan's listeners thought he was dreaming. But Reagan had faith in freedom. He knew that communism, although militarily powerful, was ideologically dead. He knew what our Founders knew: that, in a truly legitimate government, power does not come out of the barrel of a gun, but only from the consent of the people.

- Sam Brownback

I do believe in the separation of church and state. But I don't think separation of church and state means you have to be free from your faith.

- Sam Brownback

None of us takes amending the Constitution lightly. The plain fact is this amendment has been exhaustively studied and it really is time to act.

- Sam Brownback

Instead of getting angry at somebody for opposing you on something, you're just praying for them. You just pray blessings on them, blessings on their family.

- Sam Brownback

I want to make it to Heaven and be as good an influence on others as I can in that process.

- Sam Brownback

Too often, while well-intentioned, our poverty programs fail the poor. They fail them by keeping them in cycles of dependency.

- Sam Brownback

My faith informs everything I think and do. It's part of my value system.

- Sam Brownback

I grew up taking care of the pigs. I love this country that, you know, somebody can do something like that.

- Sam Brownback

I'd pull my little brother on our motorcycle on an inner tube behind it. We would go fishing, we would hunt some, growing up.

- Sam Brownback

I still have a lot of judgmentalism in me, where I'd see somebody, and I just would, you know, I disagree with this person, and you kind of automatically cast them away. And even though you don't do anything physically, you don't say anything, but people get a real sense of your heart.

- Sam Brownback

I think the next president needs to lead on cultural issues and experience, particularly on foreign policy.

- Sam Brownback

The next president needs to know foreign policy and not learn it on the job.

- Sam Brownback

Refugees are the human dimensions of a failed state.

- Sam Brownback

What I find is most people have a civics book understanding for how Congress works and how a bill moves.

- Sam Brownback

You can raise a good child in a single-parent family, but it's much more difficult.

- Sam Brownback

My faith makes me willing to do things that may look like there's going to be a lot of physical difficulty. And you just go ahead and do it because you truly believe it's the right thing to do.

- Sam Brownback

I think we just need to stick to our knitting on the topics and the subjects the American people care about.

- Sam Brownback

My dad farmed, my granddad was a farmer. I wanted to be a farmer.

- Sam Brownback

Dick Durbin's a worthy opponent on any debate. He's very intelligent, quick. Knows his facts and puts them forward well.

- Sam Brownback

No government should ever be big enough to substitute for the family.

- Sam Brownback

There's no religious test in our country, and there shouldn't be. We're an open, competitive society.

- Sam Brownback

I always think that the party that offers the most hope and ideas for the future is the party that wins.

- Sam Brownback

I think we have to secure our borders and make sure that people coming in are coming here not to do us harm.

- Sam Brownback

I think personal beliefs of everybody shape everybody.

- Sam Brownback

I'll read anything by a guy who spent 40 years in a cave.

- Sam Brownback

I don't think there should be more gun control. I think there should be more education.

- Sam Brownback