Marco Rubio Quotes

The gap between aspiration and reality could hardly be wider. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible.

Unequal wealth distribution is a risk factor for inequality that must be attacked by policies.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

I've lived the American Dream, but, sadly, for too many, the American Dream is fading.

Big government helps the people who have made it. It doesn't help the people who are trying to make it; it crushes the people who are trying to make it.

Spreading the wealth punishes success while setting America on course for a greater dependency on government.

If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you.

American social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.

Mitt Romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the American dream belongs to some of us but not all of us.

If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for them and their children, that puts democracy at risk.

The inequality that exists today, … derives less from the unequal availability of opportunity than from the unequal ability to exploit opportunity …

… there is inherent in the dynamics of capitalism a natural and destabilizing tendency toward inequality of income, wealth and opportunity.

Economic inequality is not about food stamps and homeless shelters. It is about being a devotee of social justice and equality.

The truth is that I've always been fascinated with wealth in America. To me, it's been about the American dream and the corruption of that dream.

America has tolerated inequality because people think they can get ahead. If you have immobility on top of inequality, then people are not going to be happy campers. If you're stuck on the bottom and there just isn't much churning in society and you're stuck there through your adulthood, that's not a nice life to look forward to.

Greater inequality in Europe has made people less happy.

Most of the time in America, we're surrounded by oppressive inequality such that the wealthiest 1 percent collectively own substantially more than the bottom 90 percent. One escape from that is America's wild places.

Big government doesn't help the middle class, it buries it.

Colour is not the issue in America; class is.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

Yes, look, social class is definitely an issue in Britain, it is definitely an issue and I think that most people across the country would sympathise with the idea that there are lots of people with talent and ability all across this country who want to make more of themselves and part of the responsibility of government is to make that happen.

France has the least social mobility of any developed country. The social elevator no longer works. It's broken.

When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.

The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing.