Ted Cruz Quotes

We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.

We need to conceptualize; we need to articulate conservative domestic policy with a laser focus on opportunity, on easing the means of ascent up the economic ladder.

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.

The only way to have a better world and end poverty is by closing the gap between the top and the bottom.

Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America.

My father worked in a post office and never made probably more than $8,000 a year as an employee of the post office, so when people can rise up from very modest circumstances and do well economically, I think that's a good thing about America, and we should encourage that kind of activity.

Our main task is not to see that people of great wealth add to it, but that those without much money have a greater chance to earn some.

We don't want to saw off the first rung of the economic ladder.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

As America has grown less economically equal, a citizen's ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can become anything.

We must ensure the economy really works for all, to address unconscionable wealth and income disparities that allow access to opportunity for some over others.

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries.

The way to turn our economy around is not by making rich people poorer, it's by making poor people richer.

We don't need to solve the problem of the rich-poor gap. We need to solve the problem of common prosperity.

Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it.

Workers in decent jobs view the economy as unjust if they or their children have virtually no chance of climbing to a higher rung in the socioeconomic ladder.

Eradicate poverty. This is all that matters in my country. When I am out training I think about this a lot; when I am running it is going over in my mind. As a country we cannot move forward until we eradicate poverty.

You have to let the market reward effort and skill. But a system in which inequality of incomes constantly increases over time is worrisome.

Remember, America's greatness is based on creating wealth like the rest of the world has never known, and then, making sure it's shared throughout a middle class and even the underprivileged.

We certainly want those at the top to do well, but if you base your entire presidency and your entire economic platform on helping them do even better, you're missing what makes the economy tick. Because not everyone has been as fortunate as Mitt Romney, you cannot base your whole approach on a life experience as rarified as his.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.

What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.

I'm a capitalist. I'm not going to feel sympathetic to people leading a life they don't have to lead who, with effort, could maybe break out of it.

I don't mind the rich getting richer, but the poor shouldn't be getting poorer, and there should be more people moving into the middle class.

The essence of the conservative message should be we want a dynamic nation where anybody with nothing can achieve anything.