Top 100 Quotes About Robert Reich
#1. In the U.S. the powerful critics of austerity such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich rightly identify the decline of 'labor' as a problem, and renewing trade unionism part of the solution. Our opportunity is to make the same case in the UK.
Frances O'Grady
#2. We need to expand Social Security to prevent the looming retirement crisis, and we can do it simply by asking billionaires to pay their fair share.
Robert Reich
#3. The 'free market' is the product of laws and rules continuously emanating from legislatures, executive departments, and courts.
Robert Reich
#4. Fewer and fewer large and medium-sized companies offer their workers full health-care coverage - 74 percent did in 1980, under 10 percent do today. As a result, health insurance premiums, co-payments, and deductibles are soaring.
Robert B. Reich
#5. Those at the top would do better with a smaller share of a booming economy that elicits a positive politics than they will do with an ever-larger share of an anemic economy that fuels the politics of anger.
Robert Reich
#6. A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.
Robert Reich
#7. Regressives say small businesses would be hurt by a higher marginal tax. Don't believe this, either. Only just over 1 percent of small-business owners earn enough to be taxed at the top rate - and that's just on the portion of their incomes exceeding $379,000. The
Robert B. Reich
#8. In truth, government has been good to Wall Street and big business.
Robert Reich
#9. We used to be so proud that our country offered far more economic opportunities than the feudal system in Great Britain, with its royal family, princesses and dukes. But social mobility in the UK is higher than in the US. Our social rift is as big as it was in the 1920s.
Robert Reich
#10. When I was a kid, the bigger boys would pick on me. So I got an idea that I would make alliances with older boys, like just one or two, who would be my protectors.
Robert Reich
#11. One tax dodge often used by multi-national companies is to squirrel their earnings abroad in foreign subsidiaries located in countries where taxes are lower.
Robert Reich
#12. Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.
Robert Reich
#13. The only way to make sure no bank is too big to fail is to make sure no bank is too big.
Robert Reich
#14. Median wages of production workers, who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, haven't risen in 30 years, adjusted for inflation.
Robert Reich
#15. The federal budget deficit isn't the nation's major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn't be our major goal.
Our problem is lack of good jobs and sufficient growth, and our goal must be to revive both.
Robert Reich
#16. There are party leaders, big corporation, Wall Street. There are very wealthy individuals who kind of represent where the Democratic Party, the official Democratic Party was and to some extent still is.
Robert Reich
#17. As long as the big banks are allowed to remain big, their political leverage over Washington will remain big. And as long as their political leverage remains big, the taxpayer and economic tab for the next mess they create will be big.
Robert Reich
#18. I knew Hillary Clinton from undergraduate days and was enormously impressed with her. She was a terrific energy and enthusiasm, and a great organizer. And I knew that she was going to have a political future.
Robert Reich
#19. I think that in politics, when people want to discredit a particular position, they say, "Oh, they are liberals," or "They are conservatives; we are centrists." Everybody wants to be a centrist.
Robert Reich
#20. The fastest growing occupation in the private sector is security guards. The fastest growing occupation in the public sector is prison guards. (1992)
Robert Reich
#21. Those who analogize the federal budget to a family's budget must know nothing about either.
Robert Reich
#22. Obviously, personal responsibility is important. But there's no evidence that people who are poor are less ambitious than anyone else. In fact, many work long hours at backbreaking jobs.
Robert Reich
#23. At the same time, most of what government does that helps them is now so deeply woven into the thread of daily life that it's no longer recognizable as government.
Robert B. Reich
#24. As digital equipment replaces the jobs of routine workers and lower-level professionals, technicians are needed to install, monitor, repair, test, and upgrade all the equipment.
Robert Reich
#25. The core principle is that we want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite. We want equal opportunity, not equality of outcome. We want to make sure that there's upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy.
Robert Reich
#26. Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers and are available to all.
Robert Reich
#27. As to the meaning of "corporate social responsibility," Friedman and I would agree: If a certain action improves the corporation's bottom line, there's no point in labeling it "socially responsible." It's just good business.
Robert Reich
#29. Rather than subsidize 'American' exporters, it makes more sense to subsidize any global company - to the extent it's adding to its exports from the United States.
Robert Reich
#30. In 1968, the sanitation workers of Memphis tried to form a union. The city resisted. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life.
Robert Reich
#31. No economy can continue to function when the vast middle class and everybody else don't have enough purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing without going deeper and deeper into debt.
Robert Reich
#32. Technology is changing so fast that knowledge about specifics can quickly become obsolete. That's why so much of what technicians learn is on the job.
Robert Reich
#33. Freedom is the one value conservatives place above all others, yet time and again, their ideal of freedom ignores the growing imbalance of power in our society that's eroding the freedoms of most people.
Robert Reich
#34. I grew up poor. My mother raised a family of four on between $9,000 and $15,000 a year.
Robert Reich
#35. If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Robert Reich
#36. I'm 40 years old. What I have seen my whole life is widening income inequality.
Robert Reich
#37. Government subsidies to elite private universities take the form of tax deductions for people who make charitable contributions to them.
Robert Reich
#38. It's not government's business what people do in their private bedrooms.
Robert Reich
#39. Political scientists after World War II hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations - clubs, associations, political parties, unions - to which politicians were responsive.
Robert Reich
#40. On the Republican playing field, Republicans always win.
Robert Reich
#41. More people are killed by stray bullets every day in America than have been killed by Ebola here. More are dying because of poverty and hunger.
Robert Reich
#42. There is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing boardrooms.
Robert Reich
#43. Standing up to bullies is the hallmark of a civilized society.
Robert Reich
#44. The presidency is probably the loneliest office in America. Regardless of your friends, regardless of how good your marriage is, regardless of anything, you are alone there at the top.
Robert Reich
#45. Bankruptcy laws allow companies to smoothly reorganize, but not college graduates burdened by student loans.
Robert Reich
#46. The monied interests are doing what they do best - making money. The rest of us need to do what we can do best - use our voices, our vigor, and our votes.
Robert Reich
#47. You might say those who can't repay their student debts shouldn't have borrowed in the first place. But they had no way of knowing just how bad the jobs market would become.
Robert Reich
#48. We need a national infrastructure bank to rebuild our crumbling highways and water and sewer systems, thereby putting additional people back to work.
Robert Reich
#49. Official boundaries are often hard to see. If you head north on Woodward Avenue, away from downtown Detroit, you wouldn't know exactly when you left the city and crossed over into Oakland County - except for a small sign that tells you.
Robert Reich
#50. If you ever want to get a sense of your own personal failure, look at yourself trying to get across a point that nobody is listening to and the situation gets worse and worse.
Robert Reich
#51. Along with individual responsibility goes some societal responsibility to enable young people and their parents to do what they need to do. Otherwise, what is a society?
Robert B. Reich
#52. In reality, most of America's poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.
Robert Reich
#53. Look, any cut in greenhouse gases is going to be expensive for American consumers, who are in no mood to bear additional costs.
Robert Reich
#54. In Washington, it's dog eat dog. In academia, it's exactly the opposite.
Robert Reich
#55. Limits should be placed on how big big banks can become.
Robert Reich
#56. It is no great feat for an economy to create a large number of very-low-wage jobs. Slavery, after all, was a full employment system.
Robert B. Reich
#57. Over the long term, the only way we're going to raise wages, grow the economy, and improve American competitiveness is by investing in our people - especially their educations.
Robert Reich
#58. 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.
Robert Reich
#60. Before the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them.
Robert Reich
#61. You can't create a political movement out of pabulum.
Robert Reich
#62. It is a myth that higher taxes lead to less demand and slower growth. In the first three decades after World War II, US top tax rates on the wealthy were never below 70 percent.
Robert Reich
#63. Corporations are not people, despite what the Supreme Court says, and they don't need or deserve handouts.
Robert Reich
#64. Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have more money and everyone else has less. But they're wrong. It's just the opposite.
Robert Reich
#65. True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.
Robert Reich
#66. Universities have to tame their budgets, especially for student amenities that have nothing to do with education.
Robert Reich
#67. 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.
Robert Reich
#68. Education is not the only answer and it's certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it's a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality.
Robert Reich
#69. Averages don't always reveal the most telling realities. You know, Shaquille O'Neal and I have an average height of 6 feet.
Robert Reich
#70. Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society.
Robert Reich
#71. Corporations aren't people. They have no brains, no consciences, no capacity for intent or guilt.
Robert Reich
#72. 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.
Robert Reich
#73. Well-trained and dedicated employees are the only sustainable source of competitive strength.
Robert Reich
#74. The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches - with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone - was once at the core of the American Dream.
Robert Reich
#75. 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.
Robert Reich
#76. Yes, the rich will find ways to avoid paying more taxes, courtesy of clever accountants and tax attorneys. But this has always been the case, regardless of where the tax rate is set.
Robert Reich
#77. Most Americans are on a downward escalator. Median wage in the United States, adjusted for inflation, keeps on dropping.
Robert Reich
#78. It's true that redistributing income to the needy is politically easier in a growing economy than in a stagnant one.
Robert Reich
#79. Community colleges are great bargains. They avoid the fancy amenities four-year liberal arts colleges need in order to lure the children of the middle class.
Robert Reich
#80. To be a skilled politician, you have to be genuine. To really make it work, you have to love people. You have to love the contact, you have to love the energy, you've gotta love inspiring people and getting their adulation in return. You can't separate what's genuine from what is necessary.
Robert Reich
#81. In a world where routine production is footloose ... competitive advantage lies not in one-time breakthroughs but in continual improvements. Stable technologies get away.
Robert Reich
#82. America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.
Robert Reich
#83. Cynicism is the largest obstacle to social change. Cynicism is dangerous because people throw up their hands and say, "Well it's not possible. Why should I even try?"
Robert Reich
#84. A smaller government reflecting the needs of the middle class and poor is superior to a big government reflecting the needs of the privileged and powerful.
Robert B. Reich
#85. The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality of result. It's equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference.
Robert Reich
#86. An Apple executive told The New York Times, "We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.
Robert B. Reich
#87. It is still possible to find people who believe that government policy did not end the Great Depression and undergird the Great Prosperity, just as it is possible to uncover people who do not believe in evolution.
Robert B. Reich
#88. When corporations get special handouts from the government, subsidies and tax breaks, it costs you. It means you have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden expenses, and government has less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense and everything else you need.
Robert Reich
#89. Public fear isn't something to be played with.
Robert Reich
#90. Most financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants in zero-sum games that take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another.
Robert Reich
#91. We are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.
Robert Reich
#92. The rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy then they're doing now with a large share of an economy that is barely growing at all.
Robert Reich
#93. Wall Street has blanketed America in a miasma of cynicism, and much of it is directed against Wall Street. The Street has only itself to blame.
Robert B. Reich
#94. Those who take their money abroad in an effort to avoid paying American taxes should lose their American citizenship.
Robert Reich
#95. I'm all in favor of supporting fancy museums and elite schools, but face it: These aren't really charities as most people understand the term.
Robert Reich
#96. As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.
Robert Reich
#97. It's no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners' share of the nation's total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 - the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.
Robert B. Reich
#98. The simultaneous rise of both the working poor and non-working rich offers further evidence that earnings no longer correlate with effort.
Robert B. Reich
#99. 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.
Robert Reich
#100. Corporations don't create jobs, customers do. So when all the economic gains go to the top, as they're doing now, the vast majority of Americans don't have enough purchasing power to buy the things corporations want to sell - which means businesses stop creating enough jobs.
Robert Reich
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