• We will not be acting as the federal government's bank.
• Source: Governing   |   October 4, 2013
• Michigan Budget Director John Nixon, on the possibility of the state making up for federal budget shortages during the shutdown without a promise to be reimbursed.

• There is no clear political pattern to these premiums. Some conservative states have lower-than-average premiums, and some pro-Obamacare states have higher-than-average premiums.
• Source: Kaiser Health News   |   October 3, 2013
• Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• 4 Comments

• Even [during] a shutdown, it's not like the vault doors get closed and no money comes out of the doors. It doesn't work that way.
• Source: Governing   |   Nation   |   October 2, 2013
• Marcia Howard, executive director of Federal Funds Information for States. In general, programs with mandatory funding (like Medicaid) likely won't be affected, but programs with discretionary funding (like TIGER grants) may be.
• 1 Comments

• It’s not smaller government or better government. It’s less accountable government.
• Source: Governing   |   Wisconsin   |   October 1, 2013
• Scott Feldt, the deputy treasurer of Wisconsin, who says he sees a “national trend” of attempts to move state treasurers’ duties into the hands of boards and executive agencies.

• I am not a bully, but what I am is a fighter.
• Source: Newark Star-Ledger   |   New Jersey   |   September 30, 2013
• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, in a TV interview with CBS This Morning. Christie's brash governing style has led some to call him a bully, but he's still favored to win re-election this year.

• Congress can’t even get its own fiscal house in order; they should be taking lessons from us rather than imposing needless suffering on us.
• Source: Washington Post   |   District of Columbia   |   September 27, 2013
• D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, who called it “ridiculous” that the District “cannot spend its residents’ own local tax dollars to provide them the services they’ve paid for without Congressional approval.”

• Many employers do not like to acknowledge that the wage level that they're offering means their own people do not have enough money at the end of the month to feed their family.
• Source: Governing   |   Nation   |   September 26, 2013
• Suzanne Donovan, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Step Up Savannah, which convinces local businesses to let them meet with their employees so they can connect those who are eligible with public assistance programs.
• 5 Comments

• When you’re leading people, you have to be the rock.
• Source: Montgomery Advertiser   |   Alabama   |   September 25, 2013
• Dana Harley, an HIV-positive prisoner in Alabama who helped the ACLU end the state's policy of segregating HIV-positive inmates. She said testifying in court made her realize that she kept a lot of emotions bottled up since her diagnosis.

• You don't really know what that person was doing. Was he picking his nose?
• Source: Governing   |   Nation   |   September 24, 2013
• James Hedlund, a traffic safety expert and consultant for a study looking at how motorists interact with their cars in the moments before a crash.

• Privacy as we’ve known it is dead, and so we’re going to have to reconcile that the two things need to go together: privacy and transparency.
• Source: Government Technology   |   California   |   September 23, 2013
• California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, at a Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society event called “Can Open Data Improve Democratic Governance?”

• If we’re going down the road of drug testing for people who receive benefits, then we better start drug testing legislators.
• Source: Lansing State Journal   |   Michigan   |   September 20, 2013
• Shelli Weisberg, spokeswoman for the ACLU in Michigan, where lawmakers passed a bill to keep people who refused to take employee drug tests or tested positive from getting unemployment benefits.
• 3 Comments

• What they’re saying is, they think it would be better to force those six black kids in St. Martin’s Parish to go back to an F-rated school.
• Source: Politico   |   Louisiana   |   September 19, 2013
• Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who wants the U.S. Department of Justice to drop its lawsuit against the state's program that allows low-income students to transfer from poor-performing public schools to private schools. The feds are seeking to block the program in districts with desegregation orders.

• The federal government has all the money, the states have all the power, the local governments have all the problems.
• BY: Caroline Cournoyer   |   Washington, D.C.   |   September 18, 2013
• Washington, D.C., Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, at Governing's Cost of Government Summit.
• 2 Comments

• Running for public office requires a total emotional commitment he didn’t feel he could give.
• Source: Chicago Sun-Times   |   Illinois   |   September 17, 2013
• Political strategist David Axelrod, talking about ex-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley who dropped out of the race for Illinois governor Monday.

• Americans have always thought the country was in decline, even back in colonial times.
• Source: Governing   |   Nation   |   September 16, 2013
• Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough.