Jeffrey Rosen Quotes

I don't agree with Bernie Sanders that the banks should be broken up at this point. But Hillary Clinton's acceptance of huge contributions from Goldman Sachs and others... And we don't debate what Clinton has done. She has a public record. She's been Secretary of State. She's basically a candidate of Wall Street, for Wall Street.

Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either.

They do not say Roosevelt saved our system. They say he has given us a new one. That is logical.

My fantasy is to break up the big banks. I wish we would end 'too big to fail' in our banking system.

We could repeal Dodd-Frank. I think that would be a big help.

The point about Roosevelt's New Deal was that it was visionary - for the 1930s.

I supported Barack Obama originally. I supported him for reelection and the alternative of a Mitt Romney is very, very clear to everybody. And I think the president has done a good job in a number of areas. But one area that has concerned me from day one has been his reliance on Wall Street type people in terms of financial matters.

I suggested a compromise to give the banks a year's time and see if they succeed in showing us that nationalization wasn't necessary. The year went by and we realized it hadn't done any good, that the money still ended up in the hands of the rich industrialists or friends of the bankers. So I concluded that it was necessary to nationalize the banks. And we did. Without considering it a socialist gesture or an antisocialist gesture, just a necessary one. Anyone who nationalizes only so as to be considered on the left to me is a fool.

In my political philosophy - which is definitely more socialist Democrat than centrist politician like Hillary Clinton - I think regulation for banks and those platforms that Bernie Sanders had are good for the whole of America.

The cardinal maxim is, that any aid to a present bad Bank is the surest mode of preventing the establishment of a future good Bank.

I think Bernie's [Sanders] setting a direction in the way that [Barry] Goldwater when he lost - I'm not saying he's going to lose. We don't know what is going to happen. It's early. But I think he's already set a lot of themes.

I think one could argue that there's more political input into the regulatory side, and on the regulatory side there seem to be fewer people with financial and banking experience - there are more lawyers, academics, economists, maybe politicians now.

I can't tell you how many times at the breakfast table my dad would curse out Franklin Roosevelt. I love my father. He was an intelligent man, but he really didn't like regulations of the Roosevelt style, or the taxes. He was an Dwight Eisenhower man. And that's what Eisenhower did, committed to breaking down the program.

Maybe he [Bernie Sanders] still thinks about the Democratic Party as the party of the New Deal.

I agree with people who say we want more income equality; we want more consumer protection; and we want sounder banks. I agree with all that.

I was somewhat confused when senator [Bernie] Sanders said, well, you know, Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign, they're part of the establishment.

The only sure way to stop excessive risk taking on Wall Street so you don't risk losing your job, or your savings or your home, is to put an end to the excessive economic and political power of Wall Street by busting up the big banks.

I don't think it's so much Trump lobbing us for changes. It's us asking him for help in getting the changes done. I think Trump has the bully pulpit. He has a great deal of influence with the Republican Party on both the House and the Senate side. The bill right now to the conservative point of view doesn't have enough repeal. It looks like we're keeping a lot of Obamacare. So we actually think that there needs to be more repeal. That's the message I took to Trump.

I think psychologically [Margaret Thatcher] is really worth studying. I am reading Charles Moore's biography of her, and he has gotten us right there with a woman who lived the unexamined life, and lived it deliberately, and who has contempt for history, even her own.

The Democrats, because they believe in socialism, redistribution, forced the banks and financial institutions to make the risky loans.

You know, the bully pulpit that the president has is pretty significant. And I think that one of the things this I've learned in my two and a half years in Congress is the American people want to see us transcend party label and transcend D and R and actually get things done, deliver to the American people, and I think if we were focused on that, we would be seeing a lot more folks happy with what's going on in Washington, D.C.

I think Bernie Sanders understands better than anyone the chasm that exists between a Democratic - the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to being there for America's working families, and that's what he's about, and that's what we're about as Democrats.

Few knew in 2000 that George W. Bush was going to end up with neoconservatives all over the place. Once 9/11 happened, I think it's fair to say that some neocons have had an enormous influence. The whole solution to every problem was to go after Iraq. This had been a neoconservative mantra for ten years. Bush certainly sees himself as having been given an endorsement. He was asked why Donald Rumsfeld,Condoleezza Rice, and Paul Wolfowitz have been promoted, these people who led us into the debacle in Iraq. Bush said there was accountability-it was the election. So there we are.

People thought they were going to make a lot of money. And then at one point, it got too hot, and the government wanted to knock it down. Trying to get it up and then knock it down, both were a mistake. And part of the reason, some people think, is that they wanted to equitize some of their companies. A healthy stock market helps equitize companies and reduce the country's debt burden.

Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage.