Jeffrey R. Immelt Quotes

The army did more to shape the pattern and direction of economic development than did any other federal agency, any state government, or any private agency.

… governments must serve capitalism by establishing and maintain a framework which enables capitalism to develop. It can induce it to grow, but cannot command it to do so.

The market economy does not automatically guarantee growth, social justice, or even economic efficiency; achieving those ends requires that government play an important role.

It's been said that government doesn't create jobs, business does. For the most part, this is true. But government creates the environment in which businesses can excel and expand.

It is absolutely clear that government plays a key role, as a catalyst, in promoting long-run growth.

All's the government should do is keep the taxes and regulations at a manageable rate, keep a decent standing army and get out of the way.

History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government. As far as governments invested in the construction of roads, railroads, and other useful public works, the capital needed was provided by the savings of individual citizens and borrowed by the government.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it

A healthy national infrastructure requires not just competent engineers but also a government—and a public—willing to pay for it.

American and world history show that if you want minimal government, you can have it—but only if you want almost everyone in your society also to be a dirt-poor, subsistence farmer. If you want a prosperous, growing modern economy, you need high specialization and a huge, complex, interdependent network of individuals, businesses, research centers and education. And only government has the authority or money to regulate that network and to regularly pump in the targeted funds needed to sustain and grow it.

President Obama wants to increase the size of government and raise taxes, while I support less government and more individual freedom.

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.

Government does not create jobs, it only creates the conditions that make jobs more or less likely.

Chronic deficits drastically reduce government's ability to make those infrastructure investments that business needs to grow and create jobs.

I mean, the Obama position has been, 'We think government ought to be spending this money, not the people who earn it.'

Instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

The economy grows when families can spend money on personal priorities rather than priorities imposed by the federal government.

Government is inevitably going to play a very significant role in infrastructure, and in a country with a federal system where vibrancy and economic health depend on interstate commerce, it's not going to be private enterprise or state governments that will give you things like an interstate highway system.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

There is not a country on earth that could get its fiscal house in order by shrinking opportunity and depressing growth.

Many people think that the U.S. is ahead in the frontier technology sectors as a result of private sector entrepreneurship. It's not. The U.S. federal government created all these sectors.

And taking more money out of the private economy and having the government perform as it has poorly done with the stimulus I don't think is the right way to go.

I am not saying that government has nothing to offer. Government has an important role in fostering an environment conducive to business creation while also protecting its citizens. These are not mutually exclusive.

We in Tennessee know that low taxes, less government, and less spending are the ways to grow our economy.

The bottom line of a successful economic policy is jobs.