Janeane Garofalo Quotes

I don't believe we need to choose between addressing economic issues and addressing issues of social or racial justice.

I've got a really long record around progressive politics, especially when it comes to the economy. Voted against the Bush tax cuts. Voted against the Trump tax cuts. Believe in investment into lifting people up, closing the opportunity gaps that exist in our society.

The income disparity is a huge issue. And I think that the only solution to this - there is no easy solution - are fundamental changes. That the world is changing quicker than our policies are changing. And we need the kinds of policies that will let us have a competitive economy going forward.

What [Bernie] Sanders has done is he's focused the nation on the fact that these things are not inevitable. They are the result of policies. We can do better to create an economy that works well for working Americans.

We are not going back to the failed policies of the past. We are fighting for the middle class!

Hey, you got something going here. I think we've got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and working people.

We want an economic team, Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner, Joseph Steiglitz's people and others, who say, you know what? We're sophisticated economists but we're concerned about poor and working people.

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.

When I travel around the country and talk about the need to raise the minimum wage or expand access to paid leave, I often talk about the need for us to reject false choices.

We do not postpone the participation of the lower classes of our people in the profits of economic enterprise, and in other countries, they do postpone it. In the long run, I think our policy is better, and we stand by it.

We have proven that you can actually move strong, progressive policies, grow the economy, and improve the human condition.

Instead of presiding over an economic system that panders to big business and a wealthy elite, a more human economy must be established which meets the needs of African women and young people.

If we are serious about breaking cycles of poverty, we have to change this (economy).

The American people must make a fundamental decision. Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all?

We can remove poverty from the surface of the earth only if we can redesign our institutions - like the banking institutions, and other institutions; if we redesign our policies, if we look back on our concepts, so that we have a different idea of poor people.

I think we are making a mistake, a very big mistake if we look at what we call the Arab Awakening only by looking at the whole dynamics in political and not in economic terms.

You can't lift people out of poverty simply by tweaking the tax system, or by raising the minimum wage by a few cents, or by reducing student debt slightly. These might be necessary components of a larger anti-poverty program, but you have to accept they are pieces of a much larger puzzle.

I don't expect to get 100 percent of what I want, but what we can't do is go back to the kind of top-down economics that doesn't work.

If we can create a climate among people that says that any serious candidate for president, Senate, governor, [the] House is going to have to talk about income inequality, raising wages in America, trade policy - that's a huge success. It's not putting pressure on a candidate. It's mobilizing people.

One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there's always some reason to live another year. And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years.

What good does the theory [of economics] do if it is not working for people?

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.

The distribution of wealth is not determined by nature. It is determined by policy.

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.

The dirty little secret, folks, is Obama is not only for occupying Wall Street. He also wants to occupy Main Street.