Jim Clyburn Quotes

The fierce battles between New Democrat centrists and old-style liberals that defined the Democratic Party in the 1990s are long gone, with the party unified behind Barack Obama's economic agenda of universal health care, expensive federal programs and more regulation of the financial markets.

I'm a proponent of single-payer health-care, public education, protecting the environment - all the things Democrats rally around.

The United States should pursue a more robust agenda for U.S. competitiveness and innovation focused on a lower-carbon economy, including investments in education, basic research and development, infrastructure, retraining, retirement security, and universal health care.

Devolutionary reform will not provide a factory, a machine or jobs, build a school, train a doctor or put a pound on pensions.

When Democrats are proposing things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for all and proposing that they take away your private insurance... it's very obvious to people that they've gone in a radical direction that will not work.

I'm willing to fight for Social Security, Medicare, student loans, U.S. jobs, equal pay, progressive taxation and full employment.

As we get closer to the end of this Congress, we should be addressing the urgent needs of the American people - the war in Iraq, affordable health care, a sensible energy policy, quality education for our children, retirement security, and a sound and fair fiscal policy.

That tax relief can spur the economy and thereby benefit all Americans is something that Washington Democrats used to understand. President Kennedy, for example, aggressively cut taxes after being elected to stimulate the economy as a means of helping all Americans.

If we have an honest discussion on whether the war on poverty should be fought with welfare or with economic growth in the private sector, Democrats will lose black votes.

President Obama and Democrats won a mandate to move us forward with jobs, healthcare reform, equality, and nation building here at home.

Well, certainly the Democrats have been arguing to raise the capital gains tax on all Americans. Obama says he wants to do that. That would slow down economic growth. It's not necessarily helpful to the economy. Every time we've cut the capital gains tax, the economy has grown. Whenever we raise the capital gains tax, it's been damaged.

My top three priorities for my first term in Congress are growing our economy; providing for quality, affordable health care; and keeping our nation and communities safe.

I wish that the Democrats would put some effort into Social Security reform, illegal immigration's reform, tax reform, or some of the other real issues that are out there.

The United States prides itself on being the richest country in the world. Yet we can't balance the budget, pay for education, or take care of the aged and infirm.

The French social model is no longer the best one in the world. We have massive unemployment. It must change.

Democrats must adopt a progressive economic message that focuses on large, direct infrastructure investments, affordable health care, portable pensions, and public-private investments that promote advanced manufacturing.

I am opposed to Obama's efforts to destroy the American economy. I'm opposed to Obama's efforts to so-called fix the health care system. I'm opposed to the way Obama wants to go about fixing unemployment.

And I'm running for president to get America working again so that we can actually fix health care, build infrastructure, improve public education, make sure there's jobs in every community in this country.

What is so clearly in the national interest is everything the government is doing in its strong, one nation domestic policy agenda: more police on the streets, more doctors and nurses in our hospitals, a welcoming face to scientists and international students.

Nearly every policy during the Obama years was anti-growth: tax increases; minimum-wage hikes; ObamaCare; Dodd-Frank regulations; massive debt spending; the Paris climate change accord; an EPA assault against American energy; massive expansions of food-stamps programs and more.

No one is suggesting societies the world over should implement an expensive basic income system in one stroke.

Public social services, infrastructural policies, and so on are vital. But a basic income should be part of a package of reforms.

We are for pension reform, jobs, the flat tax, and justice reforms.

But I think when you have something like the Green New Deal, which tends to be about big, bold ideas, instead of specifics, and then adds in other controversial topics like universal health care, and a guaranteed job for all Americans, it makes it less likely that it will pass, not more.

Where Republicans encourage popular myths about taxes, spending, and climate change, Democrats tend to stoke our fantasies about the sustainability of entitlement spending as well as about the cost of new programs.