John McDonnell Quotes

I don't think they [Congress] ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor.

Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich.

Republicans look after the rich, and Democrats focus on the needs of the middle class. Neither of them looks after the poor.

In the United States you have socialism for the rich and free markets for the poor.

Tax cuts for the rich defund the critical public programs on which American families depend.

Israel's middle class is paying for those below it, and that's fine, but also for those who are above it, and that's very wrong.

Programs aimed strictly at the poorest Americans are always and forever under assault from a Republican Party that still has not dared to cut spending on programs - like Medicare and crop insurance - that also benefit the rich.

The Clinton administration cared a lot about the middle class and the poor. But it also cared a lot - too much, in retrospect - about the rich.

So when the only domestic social policy is tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans, we say, 'Where is faith being put into action here?'

'Egalitarians' who complain about inequality view the wealth of the wealthiest as bad in itself: it disfigures society. They would enact a wealth tax to extirpate the offending wealth.

The biggest problem is that the rich people paying the bills do not share the same goals as the poor people they are trying to help. The wealthy have weak incentives to get the right amount of the right thing to those who need it; the poor are in no position to complain if they don’t.

Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the offspring of the unequal distribution of the wealth and the injustices in this world. The rich do not know hunger.

For the good of Spain, I should like there to be rather fewer rich people and rather fewer poor.

God help the rich, the poor can look after themselves

The greatest issue before the people—the question of special privilege and unequal distribution of wealth.

American economic greatness has never trickled down from the top.

Liberty is impossible if 36 thousand families at the top of the economic pyramid get as much income as 12 million families at the bottom.

President Reagan preached 'trickle down economics' but naively did not reckon on the fact that the wealthy would only care about getting more for themselves instead of caring about helping those with less.

When I see the sort of mindless tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to education, I just think we've got it exactly backward in this country.

I don't subscribe to the view that people who are better off don't want to live in a more equal society.

I try to deal with the poverty gap - to do policies for all of us rather than only for the wealthy.

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

The laws are stacked for the wealthy.

Aspiration, it seems, is in danger of becoming the preserve of the wealthy.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.