John Reid Quotes

The division of responsibility between economics and politics is indeed one of the most difficult dilemmas with which we are confronted. "Give me a sound economic position, and I will pursue a sound policy", says the Statesman. "How can I pursue a sound policy", says the Economist, "if you do not give me a sound political position?”

We should not have the U.S. government buying stock in American industries - the financial industry or any other industry.

Decisions about whether industries or companies should be publicly or privately owned are for the governments of developing countries to make; but where they ask for our assistance we'll give it.

Successful economies in the modern world are not sheepish about the power and responsibility of the state.

It is really quite amazing that all of the folks supporting privatization, from the president on down, keep invoking the name of my grandfather, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

We now consider as fundamental economic functions of the state, many duties that were left a generation ago to chance.

At the next General Election, voters face a clear choice: deregulation and less interference in everyday life with the Conservatives, or yet more regulation and interference under Mr Blair.

The realities of the modern global economy require government to play a substantial role in ensuring the national and economic security of the people.

It has become fashionable to rail against government intervention in the economy, and the FHA is a favorite example by those trying to show the government's overreach. In reality, the FHA shows how government action during the Great Recession forestalled a much worse economic fate.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

We are a coalition government, and that limits our options in some ways. Privatization happens to be one such area.

I am not someone who tends to advocate for increased government involvement in the private sector.

Canada was built from its very beginnings on the belief that public leadership in the economy and on social issues would be as effective and cheap as anything done by the private sector.

There isn’t that much that Washington can do to effect the economy.

The party cannot relinquish its leading role in the economy.

It’s not the government’s job to bail out speculators.

Less Government in Business and More Business in Government

The corporate welfare state derived from an approach to economic development which worships at the shrine of the gross national product.

When everything is going well, the role of the state in the economy should be limited. When we are in a crisis, it's different.

In the past six months, our federal government has devised a dozen strategies to save America's financial markets. Each plan has been more costly, more risky, and less aligned with the principles of our country's free market economy than the last. I am disappointed to say that this latest plan puts all the rest of them to shame.

It makes no sense to spend precious resources on propping up loss-making, state-owned enterprises when they could be used to get more children into school or provide more midwives to reduce the number of mothers dying in childbirth.

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.

What Chavez has done [in Venezuela] is that he has brought extreme poverty to an end.

I am in favor of a national bank...in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff.

Economics and politics are so intertwined and interlinked that politics now, mainstream politics, extreme center politics, are little else but a version of concentrated economics. And this means that any alternative - alternative capitalism, left Keynesianism, intervention by the state to help the poor, rolling back the privatizations - becomes a huge issue. The entire weight of the extreme center and its media is turned against it, which in reality now is beginning to harm democracy.