Famous quotes by Public Servants

"Unavoidable circumstances prevent me from giving you ample written instructions. Such however as may be deemed necessary will be prepared and sent to you at the City of Washington in a very few days"

"The Republic of Texas is no more"

"It is only requisite, for me to say to you, that the President places great reliance upon your skill, judgment and intimate knowledge"

"It took us years to get into the mess that we got ourselves in at the end of 2008, and it's going to take a while to get us out. We lost eight million jobs, we saw a financial system near collapse, we have a continuing housing crisis that we're making progress on dealing with"

"I am happy with what I do. I'd love to be the manager of the Atlanta Braves, but they hired somebody this week. So I'll just have to be inordinately happy with one of the best jobs on the planet"

"I think people are going to have a choice to make in the fall. But I think there's no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control. There's no doubt about that"

"Investing in auto companies and ensuring a financial collapse didn't lead not from a recession to a great depression may not have been the most popular thing to do, but it was the right thing to do"

"This recession is the deepest in our lifetimes, the deepest since 1929. If you take the people thrown out of work in the 1982 recession, the 1991 recession, the 2001 recession, not only is this bigger, this is bigger than all of those combined"

"It's clear that the medium and long-run fiscal challenges facing the country have to do with the rise of entitlement spending, they have to do with the longer run imbalances that we've created in the structure of the system"

"If you had asked people in 1929, 'Here is what is about to happen. How much would you pay to avoid the Great Depression from occurring?' The answer is they would have paid a lot. They would have borrowed money if it could be used to prevent the Great Depression"

"If a lobbyist sets up shop, or a lawyer, in which they're receiving income through what is something like a tax loophole so that it's not counting as corporate income, that is what this is counting as a small business"

"For policy makers interested in using tax policy to stimulate investments or especially to smooth business cycle fluctuations, the results are not promising"

"We enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We're throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big"

"I don't believe, the president doesn't believe, that the high income tax cuts work, period. I don't think the evidence supports that"

"So more than 8 million people lost their jobs. It's going to take a significant push on our part and time before that comes down. I don't anticipate it coming down rapidly"

"I am a data hound and so I usually end up working on whatever things I can find good data on. The rise of Internet commerce completely altered the amount of information you could gather on company behavior so I naturally drifted toward it"

"I believe - I'm not a political expert, but I believe there is a broad consensus, a middle ground if you will, that Democrats and Republicans, business people and workers can agree on, to get this - the economy growing faster, getting people back to work"

"Cutting taxes for very high income people an average of more than $100,000 a year for people that make more than a million dollars a year is not an effective way to get the economy going"

"The economy is too weak right now. We need to jump-start it. The American Jobs Act will provide that jump-start, to help us into next year and the year after that"

"I think what should be celebrated about our campaign is we have over 3 million people who have contributed to our campaign - teachers, firefighters, nurses, retirees. They're making up the backbone of this field organization in the country"

"Now, the president would like to do tax reform, which would obviously lower rates for most people in America and make the tax code fair and get rid of loopholes and special treatment. But absent tax reform, the president believes the right way to get our fiscal house in order is ask the wealthy to pay their fair share"

"My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together"

"What we've tried to do is have neighbors, colleagues, friends and family talking"

"It's really a question of fairness and what kind of country we're going to live in. There are 22,000 people making over $1 million. They're paying an effective tax rate in the teens. As Warren Buffett said, he pays less in taxes effectively than his secretary does. That's not right"

"Well, I would never admit to copying Karl Rove's play book, but there's no doubt that what the Bush people did in 2004 was impressive. They had neighbors talking to neighbors. They did a remarkable job increasing Republican turnout in states like Ohio and Florida"

"This is a basic function of Congress to keep the government running. And so, what we ought not to do is play politics with those who have been affected by disasters"

"The American people know the economy is too weak. Too many of them are suffering. So the question for Washington is, are we going to continue to play political games and - and - or are we going to say, we can do something right now to create jobs, to put money in the pockets of the middle-class, hire construction workers, teachers, veterans?"

"But the debt limit obviously is something that needs to and will be passed. That is not inconsistent with a process and a belief that we have to get significant deficit reduction"

"What we ought not do is play politics with those who've been afflicted by disasters. This should not be controversial. Stop playing politics, do the right thing for the country and let's make sure we're not making politics with disaster relief"

"The American people are screaming out saying it's unfair that the wealthiest, the largest corporations who can afford the best attorneys, the best accountants, take advantage of these special tax treatments that the lobbyists have, along with lawmakers, have cooked in the books here"