Political Quotes

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.
Grover Norquist, Republican_ Americans for tax reform.

The government is not the solution. The government is the problem.
Ronald Reagan, Republican.

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."
Phil Gramm Economic Advisor of John McCain July 18, 2008
(Phil Gramm was also the man who pushed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act through congress in 2000. Since then the market of complex derivatives was completely deregulated.)

"Greed is good."
Gordon Gekko in the movie "Wall Street" (1987)

"First of all: let us recognize that this is a once in a half century, probably once in a century type of event
Interviewer: Is it the worst you have ever seen in your career?
Oh, by far, there is no question that this is in the process of outstripping everything I have seen and it is still not resolved, and it still has a way to go, and indeed it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes stabilizes."
Alan Greenspan on ABCnews September 14, 2008.

"Our economy, I believe, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong, (...)
John McCain. September 15 2008.

"This is not a stimulus plan this is a spending plan!"
Republican Jim DeMint on ABC's This Week 02/01/09

"We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It's called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation."
Barney Frank (June 21, 2009, answering republicans who voiced concerns, that not funding the F-22 fighter jets program would cost jobs.

"This health care issue is D-Day for freedom in America. If we lose this, we'll probably have half of our economy in some way controlled by the federal government. We can't allow that to happen.
And on the other side of it, if we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

Jim DeMint in a conference call organized by the Consrvatives for Patient Rights.

"If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government " which they say can't run anything suddenly is going to drive them out of business?" "That's not logical." Barack Obama on a white house news conference, June 23rd, 2009.

"These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted "Just say no!" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion...Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."
Nancy PelosiNancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, referring to Town Hall Meeting protesters disrupting meetings in August. USA TODAY august 10, 2009

"You know, I'm not the most civilized person. Those kind of people, I usually took behind the woodshed and just beat the livin' tar out of 'em."
Joe the Plumber on Nancy Pelosi - August 15, 2009 Right Online conference plenary sponsored by Americans for Prosperity,

" Obama came to my neighborhood and my son and I were outside tossing the football, and all of a sudden he showed up, and there went our football tossing for a while. And, you know, neighbors were outside asking him questions, and I didn't think they were asking him tough enough questions, so I thought, you know, I'll go over there. You know, to ask one of these guys a question, and really corner them and get them to answer a question for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance. He was almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr."
Joe the Plumber about his meeting with Obama (interview with Katie Couric )CBS 10/16/08

"To prove that Wall Street is an early omen of movements still to come in GNP, commentators quote economic studies alleging that market downturns predicted four out of the last five recessions. That is an understatement. Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions! And its mistakes were beauties."
Paul Samuelson, Science and Stocks, Newsweek September 19, 1966.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
Mitch McConnell, senate minority leader, after the midterm elections of November 2010.
"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant ... This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for ... " President Barack Obama, April 14, 2011.

About the GOP proposal for a balanced budget amendment:
"It is about the most irresponsible action imaginable. It would virtually ensure that an economic downturn would end up as a deep depression, by erasing any real ability of the government to pursue countercyclical fiscal policies and in fact demanding the opposite, at the worst possible time."
Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
CNN Money 3-29-2011