Quotes About Policy

Never in history have lies been such vital instruments of diplomacy and policy.

The prime principle of employing force in pursuit of national objectives is to ensure that it is effective.

But then it hasn't really been a focus of our government to make us an educated people.

The main difference in the speed of recovery between Argentina in post-2001 and Thailand in post-1997 crises is the exports. Fiscal discipline is necessary but not sufficient without export-driven economic growth. Too much debt can result in prolonged stagnation similar to the Japanese lost-decade of 1990s. With inflation risk on the rise, we could see more socioeconomic troubles and political unrest in economies with thin middle class. 2011-2012 will be challenging for many policy makers.

The US government alone cannot get its economy out of the crisis. It appears to me that the current policy makers are suffering from the gambler's syndrome. They keep spending more money hoping that they will eventually win. More debt spending is a receipt for bankruptcy. Real economic growth comes from government and private sector investments, not from massive debt spending followed by tax increases or currency devaluation.

pro-choice or pro-abortion.

Roosevelt's policies generated intense pushback from critics who thought the federal government was straying dangerously far beyond its mandate. But what the president knew - and what those contending with the United States' contemporary difficulties would do well to remember - was that the biggest mistake one can make in a crisis is not to do too much. It is to not do enough.

You can't stand for too many things. You can't use the bully pulpit for too many things. So, I promise you, every day, I am going to talk about jobs, spending, and education.

As long as you don't stop producing guns, you can't be a decent country!

As long as you stop producing guns, you can't be a decent country!

Show me a clever nation; then I will show you a clever government!

Harper's Conservatives have used three basic methods to undermine environmental stewardship in Canada: reduce the government's capacity to gather data; downsize or eliminate offices that monitor and analyze scientific information; and seize control of channels of scientific information and prevent the publication or release of any information that could interfere with government policy.

at the dawn of the 1930s, state and local budgets dwarfed federal outlays by a factor of ten. Limited largely to the keeping of a standing army and navy and the payment of obligations incurred in wartime (including interest on war debt and the upkeep of veterans), the federal budget amounted to a negligible 3 percent of gross national product. By the end of the twentieth century, that figure would be closer to 20 percent.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

it was one of those cases I found so common later in government, where the risk of acting was far less than the risk of doing nothing

If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher than his secretary's. In fact a very small percentage of people in this country pay a big chunk of the taxes.

Government shouldn't tell you whom to marry.

I don't believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it's so outdated.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.

The public is upset. If they haven't lost their job, they know somebody that has. If they haven't lost their house, they know somebody that has. What do you do? When something's wrong, it's government's job to fix it, it must be government that's responsible for causing it.

But then there would be no city left to claim. Scorched earth is a policy, it's just not usually the best one.

Complements can be important when they affect the overall demand for an industry's product. However, like government policy, complements are not a sixth force determining industry profitability since the presence of strong complements is not necessarily bad (or good) for industry profitability. Complements affect profitability through the way they influence the five forces.

Zoos are becoming facsimiles — or perhaps caricatures — of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.

At the end of every scientific paper there is a familiar coda: more research is needed, more research is needed. What, I wondered, if we added a new coda: more action is needed. It need not be discordant with the first.