In a scheme of policy which is devised for a nation, we should not limit our views to the operation during a single year, or even a short term of years. We should look at its operation for a considerable time.
People hired by government know who is their benefactor. People who lose their jobs or fail to get them because of the government program do not know that that is the source of their problem. The good effects are visible. The bad effects are invisible. The good effects generate votes. The bad effects generate discontent, which is as likely to be directed at private business as at the government.
You have to have a sense of what it looks like, not from the point of view of the policymaker but from the point of view of those who are at the receiving end of your policies.
Now the truth is, a president really can't control the economy, although his policies do have some effect on it.
The crucial question for any policy is not what, are its intentions, but what are its effects?
Sometimes it seems President Obama lives in a parallel universe where facts are floating around to be plucked out of suspended animation. Never more so than on the effects of the Affordable Care Act.
Governments have a legitimate concern with slowing population growth. But often this has been attempted with little concern for the individuals most affected.
Instead of having a set of policies that are equipping people for the globalization of the economy, we have policies that are accelerating the most destructive trends of the global economy.
All varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which - from the point of view of their authors and advocates valuations - is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter.
By standing still, we're making the things we don't like about Obamacare even worse, forcing Missourians to bear all the costs of this law - and reap none of the benefits.
If Mr. Trump gets precisely the policies he says he wants, then the economy will suffer a recession.
Before Obamacare you had a lot of people that were very, very happy with their health care. And now those people in many cases don't even have health care. They don't even have anything that's acceptable to them.
We need to keep in mind the well-established fact that the full effects of monetary policy are felt only after long lags. This means that policy makers cannot wait until they have achieved their objectives to begin adjusting policy.
Some policies may promote growth in ways that will increase poverty; others may promote growth in ways that will reduce it. Some growth strategies may be good for the environment; others may not be.
Good or bad, political choices have an impact on the way country’s behave.
No citizen or social group can be completely isolated from politics, because policy decisions and actions affect their lives.
For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ's Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population.
I have deep emotions about the American people. If I were to cry for anything, I would cry for them and the policies that they're about to face.
The American economy is like a huge aircraft carrier. It doen't turn fast. That's why you can't judge a new president by what happens in his early months.
Many times, we spend so much time on policy, but we don't explain how the policy affects and makes the heart even grow bigger. And I think that's a place that we have to look inside.
Part of what we should be thinking about, whenever legislation is passed, is, 'how does this affect all varieties of communities?'
Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences.
Most Russian programs and policies had had just the opposite effect of what was intended. The reason is hyper-centralization of power.
To support policies that dehumanise others is to dehumanise yourself.
In foreign policy, even if you hold high office, you can't be sure what the effects will be of the things you do.
