Quotes About Government

Bombing the Murrah Federal Building was morally and strategically equivalent to the U.S. hitting a government building in Serbia, Iraq, or other nations.

We're facing a natural disaster in the middle of an economic disaster. The federal government has to balance its budget the way our families do.

The last thing we need to do when natural gas has been such a blessing is raise the severance tax.

The economy is not immutable; it's not about natural laws. It's about rules, and we make the rules.

You can auction coal blocks. All natural resources of government should be auctioned.

Partnering with local governments to conserve critical working landscapes and protect our abundant natural resources is key to maximizing the conservation impact of state funds.

Sheldon S. Wolin

The terminal stages of what we call capitalism, as Marx grasped, is not capitalism at all. Corporations feast on taxpayer money.

Debs came to the conclusion that no strike or labor movement could ultimately be successful as long as the government was controlled by the capitalist class. Any advances made by an organized working class would later be reversed by the capitalists when they regained absolute power, often by temporarily mollifying workers with reforms. Working men and women had to achieve political power, a goal of Britain's Labour Party at the time, or they would forever be at the mercy of the bosses.

My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of happiness—when these things can be said," wrote Paine, "then may that country boast of its constitution and its government."30

The investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, Mubadala, became the primary investor

Putin's influence in St. Petersburg, however, did not stem solely from his regulatory authority.

Putin's ability to maneuver between the city government, the security services, and the mafias that controlled many of the country's leading export industries.

Selling R&D to the government was like taking your venture capital and putting it into a savings account," Noyce declared. "Venturing is venturing; you want to take the risk.

With powerful friends and knowledge of underhanded methods, former spooks were a step ahead in the struggle for property amid the wreckage of the Soviet state. Some provided security for leading businessmen. Alexei Kondaurov, a former KGB general, was hired by banker-turned-oilman Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Others, such as Alexander Lebedev, built business empires spanning from telecoms to textiles. A third group, which included Vladimir Putin, worked directly in the government.

As in Japan, therefore, Korea's tech companies emerged not from garages, but from massive conglomerates with access to cheap bank loans and government support.

In 1996, one study reported, "26 tax collectors were killed, 74 were injured in the course of their work, 6 were kidnapped, and 41 had their homes burnt down.

In China there was no agricultural lobby that opposed decollectivization; instead, Chinese peasants actively fought for control over their farms.17 Chinese industries, like those in any country, pushed for subsidies and government support, but manufacturing played a smaller role in China's economy and politics than in the Soviet Union, so industries were unable to undermine change.

The oil industry—which in productivity terms was one of the great success stories of privatization—also began a slow but steady renationalization

The government made no attempt to raise the magnitude of revenues that would have been necessary to rebuild a welfare state, for example, or to hike investment in health and education.

The state has the right to expect entrepreneurs to observe the rules of the game," Putin explained in July 1999.

China as the central challenge, condemning "unfair trade practices and massive, non-market-based state intervention" and cited "new attempts by China to acquire companies and technology based on their government's interest—not commercial objectives

In the early 1990s, Khodorkovsky made a fortune by attracting government deposits to his bank and speculating against the collapsing ruble. His bank, Menatep, was the largest holder of government funds, and much of the profit he made as a banker came at the government's expense.19 Khodorkovsky used his banking business to expand into other sectors, purchasing the Yukos oil company at a knock-down price in 1995 through a scandal-plagued privatization scheme.

Khodorkovsky won few allies in this fight. His contempt for government officials was alienating, as were his demands that the government fire officials on the sole grounds that he found them incompetent