Iain Duncan Smith Quotes

The truth of the matter of is that stimulus money not only doesn't stimulate; it actually reduces output.

Popular as Keynesian fiscal policy may be, many economists are skeptical that it works. They argue that fine-tuning the economy is a virtually impossible task, and that fiscal-stimulus programs are usually too small, and arrive too late, to make a difference.

The U.K. and almost all of Europe have erred in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity in the short term, is the way to produce real growth. It is not. You've got to spend money.

I don't accept as an article of faith that lots of short-term stimulus boosts the economy and gets us back on the long-term trajectory.

If borrowing and spending all this money led to more jobs than we would be at full employment already.

I think stimulus money is an absolute mistake.

We are all Keynesians now.

Monetary policy cannot do much about long-run growth, all we can try to do is to try to smooth out periods where the economy is depressed because of lack of demand.

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.

Things swept so badly that I had distrust - after 1967, let's say - of American Keynesianism. For better or worse, U.S. Keynesianism was so far ahead of where it started. I am a cafeteria Keynesian.

The Keynesian idea is once again accepted that fiscal policy and deficit spending has a major role to play in guiding a market economy. I wish Friedman were still alive so he could witness how his extremism led to the defeat of his own ideas.

I don't think Keynesian Monetarism has to be Democrat or Republican.

We simply can't spend our way out of a recession.

Whatever the economy needs to maintain itself, the government will do it.

Larger deficits are necessary and proper means to mitigate unemployment as the far greater evil in terms of human welfare.

In the '30s, the Keynesian stuff worked at least in the sense that you could print money without inflation because there was all this productivity growth happening. That's not going to work today.

The pro-growth policies and spending restraint of Conservatives work.

When there's downward pressure on growth, one choice is to adjust economic policy, increase deficits, relax monetary policy. That might have a short-term benefit, but may not be beneficial for the future.

In all modesty, we must admit that governments are not always the best doctors when it comes to diagnosing economic ailments and prescribing the right treatment.

I don't think Obama understands basic economics. Not economics that work. He may understand some theory that someone in Princeton sat and dreamed up, but it's not working.

In the past, proactive fiscal polices almost always meant just more investment and an increase in the fiscal deficit.

Austerity policy without currency devaluation can only hamper economic growth.

It's become glib political conventional wisdom in Washington that a massive spending plan will provide a parachute rescue for a cliff-diving economy - landing it safely and with strong enough legs to move toward a healthy future.

I didn't wake up one day and say, you know, 'Supply-side economics doesn't make sense.'

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.