Peter Hargreaves Quotes

Starting my own business was kind of a wakeup call in a number of different ways. I had to meet a payroll every week, and we had to satisfy customers, and we had competitors that we had to compete with in order to have those customers come into our stores, and we had to compete with other employers for our employees.

It was while starting my business that I saw my first glimpse of government's impact on business.

I've started several small businesses myself and know that it is tough out there for the little guy in the global economy. I came to the conclusion that, oftentimes, the best thing the government can do for small business is to stay out of the way.

When President Obama speaks about raising taxes on the rich, he speaks about high-income employees and small business owners, not entrepreneurs who build big businesses.

I can't understand why the Democratic parties seem so hostile to economic growth and business.

After adding trillions to the debt on big-government policies most Americans didn't ask for and which we couldn't afford, Democratic leaders say they need more money, which they intend to take from small business, even though small businesses create the majority of new jobs.

Certainly, the job of a U.S. senator is to create a climate conducive to creating jobs, which is lower taxes and less government regulation. What Harry Reid has been doing is putting forward those policies that actually put more regulation on business.

If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

What we lack is a good, strong business climate with lower taxes, fairer regulation.

For small businesses, you need less taxes, less federal spending, and you need less regulation that blocks their growth.

Mentors don't have to be the Daymond Johns or the Mark Cubans. A person running a successful bodega or a tax firm in your community for the last 20 years, that person is working just as much as the individual who's running General Mills.

That is why I strongly believe we should working in Congress to make America a better place to run a business by reducing the costly burdens of bureaucracy and red tape.

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.

The Obama administration believes in experts and blue-ribbon panels. They believe in creating new agencies and boards. They believe in all that, but they just don't trust the entrepreneur's ability to grow her own business and to create jobs.

My view is that you still, in order to win from the Labour perspective, have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.

I've built companies, I've created jobs, I know the frustration of small businesses with higher taxes.

The Obama administration is not helping small businesses create jobs. In fact, it is responsible for the regulatory uncertainty nearly 50 percent of small-business owners cite as responsible for their lack of hiring.

Business is a string of seemingly impossible problems looking for solutions. Each problem you solve creates a new barrier to entry for your next competitor.

Before I got in this business I was in the chicken business.

I hear from the business community all the time that what they need is an educated work force. They need an infrastructure that can make people and products. You need to cultivate an environment that they can imagine living in and being in, having employees be in. And a fair tax structure. And a responsive government.

I have run large organizations, I know what it takes to create a healthy business climate, and I have more experience than Jerry Brown doing that. So it'll be a stark contrast, a career politician vs. someone who has met a payroll, gotten a return on investment, knows how to use technology to do more with less.

I'm tempted to say that Conservative governments are normally elected to clear up the mess left by Labour governments.

Serious people need to work hard to reduce the debt, reduce taxes, and slash regulation on the small businesses and families that are the lifeblood of new jobs and innovation in our state.

A finance minister should have a basic understanding of the country, know where the shoe pinches and, hence, have some compassion in policy formulation. An ability to understand economic issues should certainly be there.

I know how businesses work and what government can do to help lay a strong foundation for the private sector.