177 Quotes by Robert B. Reich

Yale Law School was the kind of place you went if you felt you needed to go to law school, maybe, for your resume, but you really didn’t want to practice law. You wanted to do public policy, or maybe go into politics.

In the life of a nation, few ideas are more dangerous than good solutions to the wrong problems.

At the same time, most of what government does that helps them is now so deeply woven into the thread of daily life that it’s no longer recognizable as government.

The only sure way to stop excessive risk taking on Wall Street so you don’t risk losing your job, or your savings or your home, is to put an end to the excessive economic and political power of Wall Street by busting up the big banks.

When corporations get special handouts from the government, subsidies and tax breaks, it costs you. It means you have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden expenses, and government has less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense and everything else you need.

Once norms are broken without consequence, further breakage ensues.

Bill Clinton was a very, very good speaker. But like many people who are great speakers and great thinkers and have a lot of energy and ambition, he talked too much.

The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches – with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone – was once at the core of the American Dream.

Do you recall a time when the income of a single schoolteacher or baker or salesman or mechanic was enough to buy a home, have two cars, and raise a family?