Quotes & Sayings About Economic Policies

The countries that have risen and separated out as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union are, on the whole, following freer economic policies. Most of these states have freer government and less restrictions on trade. — Milton Friedman

There is no economic policy. That's really important to say. The general modus operandi of the Bushies is that they don't make policies to deal with problems. They use problems to justify things they wanted to do anyway. So there is no policy to deal with the lack of jobs. There really isn't even a policy to deal with terrorism. It's all about how can we spin what's happening out there to do what we want to do. — Paul Krugman

And the cornerstone of my economic policies, when I first got elected, was cutting taxes on everybody on who paid taxes. — George W. Bush

The economic insecurity of the past ten to 15 years, the 2008 Wall Street crash, NAFTA, and the loss of millions of good jobs - these directly grow out of Democratic Party neo-liberal policies. — Jill Stein

What I know is that if you put the right policies in place that will lead to economic growth, society will be better. — Anthony Scaramucci

The larger Europe grows, the more diverse must be the forms of co-operation it requires. Instead of a centralised bureaucracy, the model should be a market - not only a market of individuals and companies, but also a market in which the players are governments.
Thus governments would compete with each other for foreign investments, top management and high earners through lower taxes and less regulation.
Such a market would impose a fiscal discipline on governments because they would not want to drive away expertise and business.
It would also help to establish which fiscal and regulatory policies produced the best overall economic results.
No wonder socialists don't like it. — Margaret Thatcher

Revolution is about the need to re-evolve political, economic and social justice and power back into the hands of the people, preferably through legislation and policies that make human sense. That's what revolution is about. Revolution is not about shootouts. — Bobby Seale

Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice. — Michelle Bachelet

Hard work and discipline lead to economic success. Government handouts and unsupervised policies of pity only rob people of incentive. If tax money continues to be wasted, it becomes morally wrong for our government to confiscate huge percentages of income and property from Americans, even if they are wealthy. — Bill O'Reilly

Women in America cannot achieve our full economic and personal fulfillment as long as the concentration of wealth and power in the top 1% continues to stifle democratic voices and progressive policies. — Christine Pelosi

As an explanation tool, the concept of class serves, first and foremost, to clarify who gains and who losses from specific economic processes and policies and with what consequences. — Alejandro Portes

Barack Obama likes to point to General Motors as the poster child for the job creation success of his economic policies. However, whatever your sentiments about the government's bailout of General Motors, for every job Barack Obama 'saved-or-created' in the U.S. there were two jobs off shore. — Bob Beauprez

If you want to know what the biggest thing in your way to an improved standard of living, higher pay, a more rewarding career is: Barack Obama and the Democrat Party and their economic policies. They are the roadblock. — Rush Limbaugh

In order to achieve optimal economic growth, Congress must adhere to sane spending guidelines while promoting smart policies devoted to growing businesses and creating jobs. — Michael Steele

Milton Friedman's misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried. — John Kenneth Galbraith

When politicians like Sen. Joseph Lieberman target video game violence, perhaps it is to distract attention from the material conditions that give rise to a culture of domestic violence, the economic policies that make it harder for most of us to own our own homes, and the development practices which pave over the old grasslands and forests. Video games did not make backyard play spaces disappear; rather, they offer children some way to respond to domestic confinement. — Henry Jenkins

Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them. — Thomas Sowell

Globalization creates economic policies where the transnationals lord over us, and the result is misery and unemployment. — Evo Morales

I'd be happy to have regular face-to-face meetings at Downing Street with David Cameron to argue the case for alternative economic policies. — Frances O'Grady

Labor force needs and economic conditions are disregarded in our policies. Many aspects of our current policies and procedures are patently wrong. For example, legal immigration has almost no link to U.S. employment needs or economic conditions. — Ronald Reagan

What is called economic progress is the joint effect of the activities of the three progressive groups-or classes-of the savers, the scientist-inventors, and the entrepreneurs, operating in a market economy as far as it is not sabotaged by the endeavors of the nonprogressive majority of the routinists and the public policies supported by them. — Ludwig Von Mises

Trickle down economics is a fraud. Giving tax breaks to the rich and large corporations does not create jobs. It simply makes the rich richer, enlarges the deficit and increases income and wealth inequality. We need economic policies which benefit working families, not the billionaire class. — Bernie Sanders

Washington politicians think that government can make better decisions than you and me. But we know better. We know it's smaller, less intrusive government that will lead to real economic prosperity. We know it's business-friendly policies, not more red tape, that will create real growth. — Brad Wenstrup

What free-market economists are not telling us is that the politics they want to get rid of are none other than those of democracy itself. When they say we need to insulate economic policies from politics, they are in effect advocating the castration of democracy. — Ha-Joon Chang

The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. — John Pilger

Encouraging self-sufficiency must be a bedrock for our immigration policy, with the goal of reducing poverty, strengthening the family, and promoting our economic values. But Administration officials and their policies are working actively against this goal. — Jeff Sessions

I have always thought that the rapid economic development of South Africa would in the long run prove to be incompatible with the government's racial policies, and recent events have tended to confirm my opinion. — Harry Oppenheimer

With his economic speeches in response to Obama's 'you didn't build that' fiasco, Romney proved that he does have fire in his belly and that he is fervently dedicated to free enterprise, entrepreneurship and pro-growth policies. — David Limbaugh

A single currency means a single government, and that single government would be the government whose policies determined every aspect of economic life. — Enoch Powell

Economic growth can enable development if it is supplemented by public policies that encourage circulation of wealth, especially into crucial areas such as public healthcare and education. — Jamshyd Godrej

It's ironic that the Tea Party populists, most of whom believe that they are furthering the American ideal of "rugged individualism," are supporting mega-corporate-friendly policies like Reaganomics and Clintonomics and are making it very difficult for individuals to be anything other than drones in a giant corporate-run economic machine. And, on the flipside, those countries that call themselves "democratic socialist" in their organization - Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden - actually provide a deep and fertile soil into which entrepreneurs may plant new businesses. — Thom Hartmann

Neoliberalism is the defining political economic paradigm of our time - it refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private interests are permitted to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize their personal profit. — Noam Chomsky

The poorest country in South America, Bolivia, had been devastated by neoliberal economic policies. — Noam Chomsky

There are but three political-economic roads from which we can choose ... We could take the first course and further exacerbate the already concentrated ownership of productive capital in the American economy. Or we could join the rest of the world by taking the second path, that of nationalization. Or we can take the third road, establishing policies to diffuse capital ownership broadly, so that many individuals, particularly workers, can participate as owners of industrial capital. The choice is ours. — Russell B. Long

When it comes to America's economy, the truth is that Mitt Romney believes that the key to our country's economic future lies in the failed policies of the past, the same ones that put banks before people, Wall Street before Main Street, plunging us into recession and devastating the middle class. — Charlie Gonzalez

Capitalism brainwashes us through advertising and the skewing of priorities ... We need economies that promote human values, seek to limit suffering, and are committed to democratic principles, rather than ones dependent on global trade and a blind commitment to neo-liberal economic policies. — Sulak Sivaraksa

People end up fleeing countries who adopt economic policies based on these flawed principles. And more often than not, they come here. — Marco Rubio

Broadly speaking, the Southern and Western desert and mountain states will vote for the candidate who endorses an aggressive military, a role for religion in public life, laissez-faire economic policies, private ownership of guns and relaxed conditions for using them, less regulation and taxation, and a valorization of the traditional family. — Steven Pinker

Let me just say that while I personally am very fond of John Boehner, his record of predicting what would happen if certain policies, economic policies were instituted is abysmal, okay? — Jay Carney

And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there. — Marco Rubio

On average, the real incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans. These substantial partisan differences persist even after allowing for differences in economic circumstances and historical trends beyond the control of individual presidents. They suggest that escalating inequality is not simply an inevitable economic trend - and that a great deal of economic inequality in the contemporary United States is specifically attributable to the policies and priorities of Republican presidents. — Larry M. Bartels

We cannot blame other people for our troubles. We are not victims of the influx of foreign people into South Africa. We must remember that it was mainly due to the aggressive and hostile policies of the apartheid regime that the economic development of our neighbours was undermined. — Nelson Mandela

Within the U.S., the Obama presidency will be mainly measured by the success or failure of his economic policies. And here, I fear, the monstrous stimulus package with which this administration stumbled out of the gate will prove to be Obama's Waterloo. — Camille Paglia

The economic consequences of these policies have been the same just about everywhere, and exactly what one would expect: a massive increase in social and economic inequality, a marked increase in severe deprivation for the poorest nations and peoples of the world, a disastrous global environment, an unstable global economy and an unprecedented bonanza for the wealthy. — Noam Chomsky

One cannot understand an economy without researching the activities of all its participants, and the process through which they are born, taught, and defended by their families. To try to do so is, quite simply, stupid. That Nobel laureates and entire economic departments pretend to, and that policies in great countries is sometimes made on such pretenses makes it no less stupid. Once that reality is faced, the choice is simple. One may do stupid work on men and individuals only, or do the job right and study women, households, and classes too. — Hill Gates

Islamo-Fascism is NOT the result of economic deprivation or legitimate blowback because of Western foreign policies or even heinous drone attacks on Muslim civilians. All non-Muslims as Infidels, regardless of their faith or lack of it, are in an ideological war with a demonized, freedom-hating Muslim death-cult rooted in their accurate interpretation of the Qur'an! — Gary Patton

A lot of joblessness in the black community doesn't seem to be reachable through fiscal and monetary policies. People have not been drawn into the labor market even during periods of economic recovery. — William Julius Wilson

Honey lamb, there are a lot of things in this world I feel insecure about. Religion. Our national economic policies. What color socks to wear with a blue suit. But I've got to tell you that my performance in that hotel room last night isn't one of them. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to promote policies that produce jobs and economic growth, and to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. — Nancy Pelosi

The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies. — Samantha Power

It doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat. If you do the right policies, you get economic growth. — Nancy Pfotenhauer

Low unemployment numbers are clear indicators that Republican tax relief and economic policies are spurring growth and helping businesses hire new workers while providing American families with job security. — J. D. Hayworth

When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s. — Barack Obama

New Labour was the most short-sighted, self-serving, incompetent, useless, and ineffective government that Britain has ever known. Make no mistake, Labour's economic policies were a national security liability. — Liam Fox

In 1988, when democracy was restored, the military establishment was still very powerful. The extremist groups were still there. And when the aid and assistance to Pakistan was cut, we had to adopt harsh economic policies. So in a way, it showed that democracy doesn't pay, and the military was able to reassert itself. — Benazir Bhutto

It is sometimes suggested that the [Nazi economic] recovery was a product of a specific fascist economic strategy, which distinguished it from the recovery efforts of other capitalist states. While few would disagree that the Nazi regime had a number of clear ideological preferences when it came to the economy, the policies pursued in 1933 had much in common with those adopted in other countries, and with the policies of the pre-Hitler governments. — Richard Overy

Pundits, opponents, and disillusioned supporters would blame Obama for squandering the promise of his administration. Certainly he and his administration made their share of mistakes. But it is hard to think of another president who had to face the kind of guerrilla warfare waged against him almost as soon as he took office. A small number of people with massive resources orchestrated, manipulated, and exploited the economic unrest for their own purposes. They used tax-deductible donations to fund a movement to slash taxes on the rich and cut regulations on their own businesses. While they paid focus groups and seasoned operatives to frame these self-serving policies as matters of dire public interest, they hid their roles behind laws meant to protect the anonymity of philanthropists, leaving more folksy figures like Santelli to carry the message. — Jane Mayer

UNNATURAL CAUSES tears back the veil to show the socio-economic and racial inequities in health as well as the public policies that underpin them. Should be required viewing. — Andy Stern

I had been secretary of state for eight years, attorney general for four years, lieutenant governor for four years, and governor for four years - I had all these friends around the country - so I thought I could gin up a campaign not for me but against George W. Bush, against his war, against his economic policies, and against his education policies. — Don Siegelman

Learning from the American experience, governments around the world have developed national innovation policies and programs to accelerate their economic prosperity and to help their citizens and companies compete globally. — Robert Hormats

Without adjustments to our economic system and regulatory policies, we may be in for an extended period of social turmoil. — Jerry Kaplan

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one. — Wright Patman

The Republican promise is for policies that create economic growth. Republicans believe lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budgets, a solvent Social Security and Medicare will stimulate economic growth. — Rand Paul

What Democrats haven't focused on are the kind of policies that would promote economic growth - such as making permanent the 2001/2003 tax cuts, opening up federal lands to more energy production, and reforming government to reduce its burden on business. — Bob Beauprez

The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader, — Nancy Pelosi

Economic policies command bipartisan support only when they're incoherent. — Steven Landsburg

Accordingly, it is our task to ensure that the Government formulates policies that foster the continued development of the IT sector while also providing for citizens' access to technology and opportunity for economic advancement. — Tim Holden

The White House is defending President Obama's sports activities over the past week, saying that everyone needs leisure time. Thanks to these economic policies, 9.5 percent of Americans have all the leisure time they need. — Jay Leno

The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts, intensify existing conflicts, and, above all, to keep conflicts from being resolved peacefully. For years this man looked for a dispute anywhere in the world, but preferably in Europe, that he could use to create political entanglements with American economic obligations to one of the contending sides, which would then steadily involve America in the conflict and thus divert attention from his own confused domestic economic policies. — Adolf Hitler

Obama's economic policies obviously have not worked, and have left the American market place with enormous uncertainty and anxiety. — Bob Beauprez

Today's energy mix is the result of yesterday's consumer habits, considerable investment, and various political decisions. The potential of renewable energies, now a well-established fact, is undeniable if given the time to arrive at the technical and economic maturity that will free them from subsidization policies. — Christophe De Margerie

Inappropriate macro economic policies in some economies, characterised by [a] low savings rate and high consumption [and] failure of financial supervision and regulation to keep up with innovation which allowed financial derivatives to spread. — Wen Jiabao

We need more than new policies. We need a new worldview, and a new bottom line. We need to replace economic values as our ordering principle, with humanitarian values as our ordering principle. — Marianne Williamson

Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom - that the current economic and political system is the only possible one - the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone's blueprint? It's not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called "capitalism," figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin. — David Graeber

If we can have record high unemployment, record job loss, and just an absolutely anemic economic recovery because of Obama's policies, and he's not blamed for it, what makes anybody think he's gonna get blamed when an insurance company starts doubling their premiums? — Rush Limbaugh

The Malays were outstripped economically in their own country by the immigrant races. In the words of historian Lennox Mills, "when the British came, the Malay was a poor man in a poor country; when they left he was a poor man in a rich country." British attitudes and policies, what the Malays did for a living, the strengths of the immigrants and the nature of the Malay value system all contributed to their backward economic position. — Anonymous

The most frequent fallacy by far today, the fallacy that emerges again and again in nearly every conversation that touches on economic affairs, the error of a thousand political speeches, the central sophism of the "new" economics, is to concentrate on the short-run effects of policies on special groups and to ignore or belittle the long-run effects on the community as a whole. — Henry Hazlitt

Americans could achieve Jefferson's democratic freedoms through Hamilton's economic development strategies and trade policies. — Patrick Mendis

As I have shown, I will defend democracy with arms when it is threatened by violence; with firmness when it is weakened by division; with law and order when it is subverted by anarchy; and always, I will try to sustain it by wise policies of economic progress so that a democracy means not just an empty liberty, but a full life for all. — Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Any nation that allows the government to dominate its monetary and economic policies will ultimately suffer grave consequences. — James Cook

It is doubtful that the government knows much more than the public does about how government [Economic] policies will work. — W. Allen Wallis

Instead of marginalizing women, Congress must get to work on policies that can foster job creation and fuel economic growth. — Kirsten Gillibrand

Ladies and gentlemen, the economic disaster, the tailspin, the destruction of the greatest economic engine in the history of the world, these policies of Barack Obama's, which have led us to this point, are precisely why I fearlessly said and still say, I hope he fails. — Rush Limbaugh

I have dedicated many years to economic study, up to the Ph.D. level, to analyze and understand the inherent weaknesses of aid and why aid policies have consistently failed to deliver on economic growth and poverty alleviation. — Dambisa Moyo

There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on a national scale as the way of economic salvation; and when anyone points to what the consequences of these policies will be in the long run, they reply flippantly, as might the prodigal son of a warning father: "In the long run we are all dead." And such shallow wisecracks pass as devastating epigrams and the ripest wisdom. — Henry Hazlitt

But Empire building also bears the seeds of its own destruction. The closer a state comes to the ultimate goal of world domination and one-world government, the less reason is there to maintain its internal liberalism and do instead what all states are inclined to do anyway, i.e., to crack down and increase their exploitation of whatever productive people are still left. Consequently, with no additional tributaries available and domestic productivity stagnating or falling, the Empire's internal policies of bread and circuses can no longer be maintained. Economic crisis hits, and an impending economic meltdown will stimulate decentralizing tendencies, separatist and secessionist movements, and lead to the break-up of Empire. We have seen this happen with Great Britain, and we are seeing it now, with the US and its Empire apparently on its last leg. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The Idea of Anti-imperialism is ... to be considered on several grounds. First, it is traditionally pervasive in the United States, though given its most extreme form in anti-Western academe. Second, it is used as a negative label for any effort by the United States, or the West, to encourage liberties, to block fanaticisms, and to make aid dependent on positive economic policies. Those concerned with the future development of their countries, and of the world, cannot afford to let obsolete resentments distort their aims. — Robert Conquest

Economic growth creates jobs, and countries grow when they educate their people and pursue policies that encourage households to save, existing businesses to invest, and entrepreneurs to innovate and create new markets. — Peter Blair Henry

Our economy is robust and will remain strong as more Americans who want a job find one. Republican economic policies based on tax relief are working for the American people. — Dennis Hastert

The United States is now a bloated military empire on the cusp of steady and irrevocable economic decline. Historically, the danger in such cases is that when the fiscal stability of the empire begins to weaken, the governing elites double down on the very policies of military profligacy that caused the fiscal crisis in the first place. And that appears to be what the people who run America would like to do. This — Mike Lofgren

As never before does the keeping of our economic machine in tune depend upon wise policies in the administrative side of the government. — Herbert

We need new proactive policies that focus directly on how authorities in the public and private sphere can blend economic and social policies with an enabling environment for private initiative to create market opportunities for Decent Work. — Juan Somavia

The president is eager to get to work and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery, but the president is clear that he will not let this Congress undo important protections gained
particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment. — Barack Obama

We're going to stop this preposterous obsession with economic growth at the cost of all else. Great economic success doesn't produce national happiness. It produces Republicans and Switzerland. So we're going to concentrate on just being lovely and pleasant and civilized. We're going to have the best schools and hospitals, the most comfortable public transportation, the liveliest arts, the most useful and well-stocked libraries, the grandest parks, the cleanest streets, the most enlightened social policies. In short, we're going to be like Sweden, but with less herring and better jokes. — Bill Bryson

A long decade ago economic growth was the reigning fashion of political economy. It was simultaneously the hottest subject of economic theory and research, a slogan eagerly claimed by politicians of all stripes, and a serious objective of the policies of governments. The climate of opinion has changed dramatically. Disillusioned critics indict both economic science and economic policy for blind obeisance to aggregate material "progress," and for neglect of its costly side effects. Growth, it is charged, distorts national priorities, worsens the distribution of income, and irreparably damages the environment. Paul Erlich speaks for a multitude when he says, "We must acquire a life style which has as its goal maximum freedom and happiness for the individual, not a maximum Gross National Product." [in Nordhaus, William D. and James Tobin., "Is growth obsolete?" Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect Vol 5: Economic Growth. Nber, 1972. 1-80] — James Tobin

It's God's will that millions of people are gonna die this year because of some outmoded economic policies? No, it's not! — Thom Yorke

Even North Korean people who are not necessarily happy with economic policies are still loyal to the state itself. It's a military-first state, so whether it does very well on the economic front or not, is not central to public support for it. — Brian Reynolds Myers

In order to consolidate the euro we need to harmonise our economic, fiscal and social policies, hence we are going toward greater integration. — Francois Fillon

Through pro-growth policies, by abolishing Obamacare and eliminating other Obama-imposed impediments to economic growth, we will get our economy back on track. — Mitt Romney

A government always finds itself obliged to resort to inflationary measures when it cannot negotiate loans and dare not levy taxes, because it has reason to fear that it will forfeit approval of the policy it is following if it reveals too soon the financial and general economic consequences of that policy. Thus inflation becomes the most important psychological resource of any economic policy whose consequences have to be concealed; and so in this sense it can be called an instrument of unpopular, i.e. of anti-democratic, policy, since by misleading public opinion it makes possible the continued existence of a system of government that would have no hope of the consent of the people if the circumstances were clearly laid before them. That is the political function of inflation. It explains why inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of socialism. — Ludwig Von Mises