Economic Fairness Quotes

The market tends to pay as a wage what an individual laborer is worth. But the case last studied suggests the question how accurately the law operates in practice. May it not be an honest law, but be so vitiated in its working as to give a dishonest result?

I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.

Among the many other questions raised by the nebulous concept of “greed” is why it is a term applied almost exclusively to those who want to earn more money or to keep what they have already earned—never to those wanting to take other people’s money in taxes or to those wishing to live on the largesse dispensed from such taxation. No amount of taxation is ever described as “greed” on the part of government or the clientele of government.

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.

What exactly is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?

The USA won't be competitive or fair if we don't help more families give their kids the best possible start in life.

I like free markets, but I do like fair markets.

I'm not anti-Wall Street - I'm anti-distortions to free markets.

If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

While we are clear that it is right that those who work hard, generate wealth and create jobs for our country are rewarded, where failure is rewarded or people award themselves huge pay rises that bear no relation to performance or what their companies can bear, trust is severely undermined.

People who work make the world live better and to reward these people well is normal. Yet they are not the people who are the wealthiest.

I believe in an America in which the fruits of productivity and prosperity are shared by all, by workers as well as owners, by those at the bottom as well as those at the top; an America in which the sacrifices required by national security are shared by all, by profiteers in the back offices as well as volunteers on the front lines.

Freedom requires that government keep the channels of competition and opportunity open, prevent monopolies, economic abuse and domination.

If we're going to talk about economic fairness, or about fairness, one of the most pressing economic issues facing families, seniors, and job creators in Missouri and across America is the strain of skyrocketing gas prices.

Small businesses already struggle to compete with big businesses that enjoy the luxury of a tax code filled with corporate loopholes.

I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax.

Some libertarians say, 'Well, if people work harder, they can make more money.' But, you know, my mother is a nurse and I am a venture capitalist. I think no matter how great a nurse she is, she wouldn't earn a one-thousandth of what I can make, if that.

Even tax breaks that are supposed to help the middle class too often skew toward the wealthy. Consider the mortgage interest deduction. While political leaders in both parties have long considered it untouchable, it actually helps those at the top of the income scale far more than those at the bottom.

You can keep raising it, but at some point, everybody who believes in a minimum wage will say, "No, wait a minute. That's too much," and at that point, you have demonstrated that that there's no market relationship. You're just talking emotion. You're just talking "fairness." You're just talking being nice, and that's not how the market works. People aren't paid a wage because they're being nice to, or because it's fair. In the market, the market rules.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

I must be absolutely clear about this. Britain cannot accept the present situation on the Budget. It is demonstrably unjust. It is politically indefensible: I cannot play Sister Bountiful to the Community while my own electorate are being asked to forego improvements in the fields of health, education, welfare and the rest.

We must put an end to both economic freeloading and economic exploitation in America. There must be no place for parasites who draw their sustenance from society without giving anything in return.

I agree with President Trump that our trade deals need to be renegotiated so they are more fair to American workers.

Government has got to work for all of us and not just for a few billionaires..

A general charge of crony capitalism is easy to make. But dividing the 'bad' crony capitalists from the 'good' innovative entrepreneurs is much harder to do. And sorting them out without creating a new group of crony capitalists may be the hardest thing of all.