Leadership Quote by Phil Gramm

Phil Gramm’s line is a scalpel disguised as a bumper sticker: it slices government out of the economic origin story and crowns “working people” as the only legitimate source of growth. The intent is clear and tactical. It’s not merely pro-worker; it’s anti-state. Gramm, a conservative economist-turned-senator, spent a career arguing that regulation, spending, and industrial policy don’t create prosperity so much as they skim it, distort it, or slow it down. Framing the argument around “working people” lets him deliver a familiar small-government thesis without sounding like he’s defending CEOs or capital.

The subtext is political triangulation. Conservatives often get tagged as champions of the market’s winners; Gramm reroutes moral authority to the broadest, most sympathetic constituency in American life. “Working people” becomes a rhetorical shield: if growth comes from them, then tax cuts, deregulation, and limits on government aren’t favors to wealth but respect for labor. It’s also a quiet warning that government can only redistribute what others produce, positioning the state as dependent, even parasitic.

Context matters. Gramm rose during the late 20th century’s backlash to Great Society liberalism and amid the Reagan-era conviction that government had grown too large to be competent. Post-stagflation, “government doesn’t create growth” read less like ideology and more like hard-earned common sense to many voters. The brilliance is the compression: it turns a complex ecosystem - public infrastructure, education, R&D, rule of law - into a single moral equation, daring critics to argue against “working people” without sounding elitist.