Painterly wilted potted plant surrounded by a spiral of stacked paper forms.

Original artwork, not a still

Ronald Reagan

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker claims that in a time of difficulty, government is not the remedy people should look to. In this view, it is the source of the trouble itself. The line is a pointed political argument that official institutions cause hardship rather than relieve it.

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