Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address.
If we say, 'The government sucks,' we're kind of saying that we suck.
A government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.
We need to keep government small, but we also need to keep the influence of big business small, and we need to keep the power in the hands of the people, where it belongs. Big government and big business aren't the only two alternatives.
If people want me to go round and talk to governments and others then I feel that responsibility which is why I am on the road a good deal of the time and why I'm not slowing down.
First of all, the world criticizes American foreign policy because Americans criticize American foreign policy. We shouldn't be surprised about that. Criticizing government is a God-given right - at least in democracies.
The United States doesn't do what it does in the world for altruistic reasons. Nobody set out to be the world's government.
The vicious cycle that is bringing down European states is not going to hit us [the USA], at least not for a while, at the level of the federal government. The same cannot be said of state and local governments.
Under the current U.S. policy, because of this power struggle, American oil companies can't do business with Iran. So I think the ultimate goal of the U.S. administration in Iran is regime change, to put into power a pro-Western government that will eliminate the strategic challenge to U.S. interests and, at the same time, allow the lifting of sanctions and allowing American oil companies to do business with Iran.
The Saylor Foundation is meant to be a gadfly to encourage Google, Apple, MIT, Harvard, the United States government, and the Chinese government to aggressively pursue digital education.
We need more expensive gasoline to change consumer behavior," Mr. Jackson said. Otherwise, Americans will continue to favor big vehicles, not matter what kind of fuel-economy standards the government imposes on auto makers. Four dollars a gallon, he added, "is a good start.
New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.
Bashar Assad clearly doesn't want to hear anything that impugns his government.
If bankers can push the loans and make more profits for the bank, they get paid higher bonuses. They often also get stock options. If the bank goes under, they get to keep all of these salaries and options - and the government will bail out the bank. These guys will take their money and run, which is pretty much what they're doing now.
The world's politics are in turmoil, not to mention the Mideast, where the US has mounted attacks from Libya to Iraq to Syria, and ISIS is attacking governments in today's pipeline rivalry.
I don't think that governments should permit speculation in raw materials, because they're what the economy basically needs.
Just like a house is worth whatever a bank's going to lend against it, an education is worth whatever the bank is going to lend the student to pay the university. So the availability of government-guaranteed student loans has vastly inflated the cost of education, just like it's inflated the cost of housing.
The other dynamic keeping the stock market up - both for technology stocks and others - is that companies are using a lot of their income for stock buybacks and to pay out higher dividends, not make new investment,. So to the extent that companies use financial engineering rather than industrial engineering to increase the price of their stock you're going to have a bubble. But it's not considered a bubble, because the government is behind it, and it hasn't burst yet.
That's the problem with the financial sector. Banks and the financial sector live in the short run, not the long run. In principle the government is supposed to make regulations that help the economy over time. But once it's taken over by the financial sector, the government lives in the short run too.
In housing you have jingle mail and you can walk away and leave the bank holding the bag. In the case of student loans, the debt follows you through life, and the banks or government will turn it over to collection agencies that are not very nice people and can do all sorts of harassing things to you. It's becoming a nightmare.
Education is something that should not be organized on a for-profit basis, because in that case its purpose is not really to provide an education. It's not to teach students how to get better work, but how to provide banks with a free giveaway opportunity from the government, by making junk loans that are defaulted on. The effect may be to wreck the futures of the graduates that fall for the false promises that are being made.
You're having government spending on the economy being cut almost everywhere. That means that the only source of spending for growth has to come from borrowing from the banking system.
The fact that you have government-guaranteed student loans has created a whole new sector in the American economy that didn't really exist before - private for-profit universities that sell junk degrees that don't help the students. They promise the students, "We'll help you get a better job. We'll arrange a loan so that you don't have to pay a penny for this education." Their pet bank gets them the government-guaranteed loan, and the student may get the junk degree, but doesn't get a job, so they don't pay the loan.
Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.
I love all of the government conspiracy stuff. I love all of the shady backroom White House dealings that are going on, and all of the politics involved. That kind of stuff is just fascinating to me.
