Quotes from Robert Reich

I think the big problem is you have a vicious cycle of wealth and power in America that's just gotten completely out of control and you've seen it in politics.

Bill Clinton was a very, very good speaker. But like many people who are great speakers and great thinkers and have a lot of energy and ambition, he talked too much.

We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.

Not only do unemployment benefits help families who are hurting they also put money into their pockets that they'll then spend - and their spending will keep other Americans in jobs.

We're the richest economy in the history of the world. For the majority of Americans not to get the benefits of this extraordinarily prosperous economy, there's something fundamentally wrong.

Humor itself is a great disinfectant. It enables people to listen.

Limits should be placed on how big big banks can become.

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

We don't have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth.

What are called 'public schools' in many of America's wealthy communities aren't really 'public' at all. In effect, they're private schools, whose tuition is hidden away in the purchase price of upscale homes there, and in the corresponding property taxes.

As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, the better-off buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, the well-off pay premium rates for private care.

Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government.

Our moral authority is as important, if not more important, than our troop strength or our high-tech weapons. We are rapidly losing that moral authority, not only in the Arab world but all over the world.

There is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing boardrooms.

You can't create a political movement out of pabulum.

The only way back toward a democracy and economy that work for the majority is for most of us to get politically active once again, becoming organized and mobilized.

Media outlets that are exploiting Ebola because they want a sensational story and politicians using it to their own ends ought to be ashamed.

Detroit is really a model for how wealthier and whiter Americans escape the costs of public goods they'd otherwise share with poorer and darker Americans.

If leadership is about anything, it's about leading. Not leading people back to where they already are, because they don't need that. They're already there.

Evidence suggests jobs are crucial not only to economic well-being but also to self-esteem.

The generosity of the super-rich is sometimes proffered as evidence they're contributing as much to the nation's well-being as they did decades ago when they paid a much larger share of their earnings in taxes.

If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all.

A Democratic president should propose a major permanent tax reduction on the middle class and working class. I suspect most of the public would find this attractive.