Thomas Frank Quotes

No city embraced privatization more eagerly than Chicago, where I live.

One could argue the GOP made no progress on limiting government in their four years of total control from 2002 to 2006. If anything, government expanded like never before.

When we've been bold on the Bank of England, on PFI, on great constitutional change, on the New Deal, we've been most successful. So what we have to continue to try and do is to battle with ideas and find new ways of applying those values as the world changes.

Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm's investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much.

Politicians are good at saying how Government must do more, but we must also think carefully about where Government should do less.

One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.

It's businesses versus big government. We don't need big government. We need a more efficient, lean government, and that's exactly the kind of government we intend to deliver.

Back in the days when the market was a kind of secular god and all the world thrilled to behold the amazing powers of private capital, the idea of privatizing highways and airports and other bits of our transportation infrastructure made a certain kind of sense.

As governor, I'm spending my time focused in three areas: creating jobs, reducing the expense of government and schools.

Less Government in Business and More Business in Government

Colorado needs a governor who brings people together to create jobs and cut government spending.

As a government watchdog, I'm always looking for ways to make government smaller, more efficient, and fairer.

We don't need bigger government. We need to shrink the size of government.

For the states that take the lead on reform - asset recycling, deregulation, service innovation - the Federal Government could step back, and allow greater flexibility in how we deliver our responsibilities.

Our message in NSW is government don't need to run businesses that are out of date when the private sector can do that better.

We are going to combat corruption, and we are going to underscore the fact that we want the private investors to be a major part of our future economy.

Brian Mulroney came to power in 1984 and privatized Petro-Canada, brought in the GST and signed the free trade agreement with the U.S. He was a great prime minister and made bold conservative changes. That's all I want to do.

What we can do in Singapore may not be doable elsewhere. Some things you know you need: you want efficient government, you want clean government, you want to do away with corruption, you must educate your people. You want to get housing and so on. All these are not such secrets, not so special to Singapore.

We should not have the U.S. government buying stock in American industries - the financial industry or any other industry.

I'm confident that Gov. Romney can win over the American people on the promise of limited government, defending individual liberties and a return to common-sense solutions to our country's biggest problems.

Instead of incentivizing quick, short-term decisions, the federal government should be asking the tough questions when governments turn over publicly funded transportation assets to for-profit operators.

No state can invest the kinds of dollars in infrastructure necessary on their own. They need federal help.

The states should have much more responsibility for infrastructure building.

As far as cutting jobs, you could cut whole agencies out of the federal government and not miss them.

The entire intelligence community is so bloated and so reliant on contractors. There's no question there's many tasks that make sense to outsource, and yet, we have followed blindly this dogma that if it's private contracting, it must be better.