Quotes About Reform

Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

We must lift ourselves up, dust ourselfs off and begin the work of remaking America.

Politics doesn't have to be what people think it is. It can be something more.

about had made American life a hell of a lot better.

I was convinced that the logic of healthcare reform was so obvious that even in the face of well-organized opposition I could rally the American people's support. Other big initiatives—like immigration reform and climate change legislation—would probably be even harder to get through Congress; I figured that scoring a victory on the item that most affected people's day-to-day lives was our best shot at building momentum for the rest of my legislative agenda.

At times, I felt like the fisherman in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, sharks gnawing at my catch as I tried to tow it to shore. But as the weeks passed, the core of our reforms survived the amendment process remarkably intact.

I signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It was a significant triumph: the most sweeping change to the rules governing America's financial sector since the New Deal.

I'd asked our economic team to develop legislative reforms that would make a future crisis less likely. As far as Rahm was concerned, the sooner we got such a "Wall Street reform" bill drafted and up for a vote, the better. "It puts us back on the side of the angels," he said. "And if the Republicans try to block it, we'll shove it up their ass.

Over time, though, the team was able to arrive at a coherent set of principles to guide a shift in strategy. Under the emerging plan, U.S. officials across agencies would be expected to deliver a consistent and coordinated message on the need for reform; they would develop specific recommendations for liberalizing political and civic life in various countries and offer a range of new incentives to encourage their adoption. By

in 2007, the maverick version of John McCain, along with his sidekick Lindsey Graham, had actually joined Ted Kennedy to put together a comprehensive reform bill that offered citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants while more tightly securing our borders. Despite strong support from President Bush, it had failed to clear the Senate. The bill did, however, receive twelve Republican votes, indicating the real possibility of a future bipartisan accord. I'd

Durante siglos, al menos desde la reforma protestante, las elites económicas occidentales se han regocijado en la idea de que ser pobre es una situación voluntaria. Los calvinistas la consideraban una consecuencia de la dejadez y las malas costumbres; y los pensadores positivos la atribuyen a una incapacidad obstinada para abrazar la abundancia.

very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform legislation blithely failed to include any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition

We will change our ways significantly as a nation not when some laws tell us we have to (remember Prohibition?), but when we want to.

we've learned that some of our favorite things like DDT and the propellants in aerosol cans were rapidly unraveling the structure and substance of our biosphere. We gave them up, and reversed the threats. Now the reforms required of us are more systematic, and nobody seems to want to go first. (To be more precise, the U.S.A. wants to go last.)

We will change our ways significantly as a nation not when some laws tell us we have to (remember Prohibition?), but when we want

I think we are going to witness a bitter and bloody battle between the Tariff Reform League, which supports Joe Chamberlain, and the Unionist Free Food League created by the Unionist Free-Traders, who oppose him. The Duke of Devonshire is the president of the latter group and he's gathered many distinguished Conservatives around him, including Churchill.

General Federico Tinoco

I don't understand how we can fight the Communist Party under the leadership of the Communist Party ... I don't understand why perestroika is being carried out by the same people who brought the country to the point where it needs perestroika.

Stolypin, frowned on the public "disorder" of political mobilization, and wanted politics to return from the street to the corridors of power.

Serfdom's abolition in the Caucasus began three years later than in the rest of the Russian empire, in October 1864.

A profound, genuine upsurge for social justice can—depending on the overarching ideas and accompanying practices—institutionalize the gravest injustices.

By 1831, he had determined to leave the grocery business and to begin manufacturing chocolate and cocoa. He had convinced himself that "drinking chocolate" could become an alternative to the gin and whiskey that were ravaging so many lives.

That is in part because the very words "education reform" indicate that the question is "What's wrong with our schools?" when in reality, the question might be better phrased as "Why do American kids know less than kids from Estonia and Poland?" When you ask the question differently, you look for answers in different places.

most radical accomplishment of once-and-done is that it changed the frame of the relationship between the charity and the donor.