December 2, 2025

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

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), American film star and president, Saturday Evening Post (1965), in The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed.

For what part of “no sense of responsibility” have you been accountable? Was it on your own initiative, or were you just “going along to get along”?

Even as a movie star, Reagan had some great lines—“Where’s the rest of me?”, in Kings Row (1942). Yet, under Reagan and his successor George H. W. Bush, the U.S.’s national debt went from less than 40% of GDP to over 60%. No sense of responsibility.