Top 69 Quotes & Sayings by Amity Shlaes - Page 2

Coolidge's stat was so low; he's ranked in the bottom half of presidents. What I found when I encountered this man was the leader I might like to see today.

Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.

Coolidge was a pragmatist. He didn't start out with a tax theory. But he observed over time that lower tax rates sometimes brought in extra revenue. The success of his and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's experiment with rate cuts has been obscured by our modern history books.

Coolidge liked the dignity of the presidency. He didn't get on the phone easily. It's possible that he banished the phone from his desk. He was known to use it from time to time. The person who was hilarious with the phone was Hoover. He was a real engineer. He made a closed circuit phone where he could call the important people and they could call him, a government hotline, but it was closed. He shut out the possibility of input from people he didn't expect to get input from.

Coolidge cut the budget, and even better, cut it during peace and prosperity. He left a federal budget lower than the one that greeted him when he arrived in office. He managed to freeze or cut the budget over more than five years in office. If you look at charts of presidents - Nixon, Ike, and Reagan - you see them failing on this score.

Today many politicians suggest that where the federal government does not act, there must be anarchy. That view is odd, blinkering out the work of state and towns, which until recently did much of our charitable and cultural work. That view also blinkers out the role of mutual societies and churches.

In a way, Calvin Coolidge is better than Reagan. His tax rates were lower, and he cut budgets.

Coolidge really hated government being in the power business. He thought it was wrong. He saw the potential for growth in the power business. He didn't want the federal government in it.

Right now we're concerned about budget. Right now we're concerned about the prospect of interest rate rise. We're concerned about government corruption, government handing out deals to specific groups. Coolidge fixed a problem like that. He came into a rough time and he, and Harding before him, fixed that by budgeting.