Top 1200 Public Policy Quotes & Sayings

I think we perhaps are, with sleep, where we were with smoking about 50 years ago, in that we had all of the science, and it was right there for the public discussion, but it's not yet adequately sort of percolated out into policy or even just public wisdom.

Most people seem unaware that corporate influence and wealth has taken over public policy, such that government policy now favors the wealthy few at the expense of the people.

To attach full confidence to an institution of this nature, it appears to be an essential ingredient in its structure, that it shall be under private and not a public direction-under the guidance of individual interest, not of public policy; which, would be . . . liable to being too much influenced by public necessity.

Good people can disagree - all you want is honesty, because you know, if I disagree, I'm willing to debate you on that, and then let the public decide what's good policy and bad policy.

A much more radical conclusion . . . that, so far as I know, is shared by only a very few students of public choice [is]: that government employees or people who draw the bulk of their income from government by other means should be deprived of the vote . . . It is another example of the opening up of alternatives for investigation and the presentation of new conceivable policy options characteristic of public choice, rather than a policy that all its students favor.

In the government schools, which are referred to as public schools, Indian policy has been instituted there, and its a policy where they do not encourage, in fact, discourage, critical thinking and the creation of ideas and public education.

Far from a simple attempt to rid the nation of crime and drugs, our policy against narcotics -- like any public policy -- comes with strings attached. And increasingly these strings are constricting around the necks of Americans' lives and liberties.

The founders of this nation understood that private morality is the fount from whence sound public policy springs. Replying to Washington's first inaugural address, the Senate stated: "We feel, sir, the force and acknowledge the justness of the observation that the foundation of our national policy should be lain in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles it is in vain to look for public virtue."

Unsurprisingly, the poll-takers don't talk a lot in public about the ignorance of the electorate on political and public policy matters. And the politicians are not going to disclose the, let's say, limited body of knowledge in their constituencies. You don't get elected calling your voters airheads.

Watch out Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and supreme court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in there to shake things up!

Iraq failed for the same reasons that all conservative public policy efforts fail. Refusing to acknowledge the importance of government while relying on it to achieve your objectives causes the same kind of chaos in foreign policy that it does in matters closer to home.

Now it is worth noticing two things about the private substitutes that I have described. The first is that in the aggregate they are probably much more expensive than would be the implementation of the appropriate public policy. The second is that they are extremely poor replacements for the missing outcomes of good public policy. Nevertheless, it is plain that the members of a society can become so alienated from one another, so mistrustful of any form of collective action, that they prefer to go it alone.

Donald Trump has done more for getting people to understand the importance of public policy that respond to public needs in an affirmative way than anything we could have done on our own.

Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

In Utah alone, ten million acres are open for business. Their policy is not about the public or the public's best interest. It is about the oil and gas corporations' best interests.

This is probably going to surprise people, but if you were to do a scan around the globe on public policy concerning our industry, you would probably have to conclude that the United States has the policy that has been, I believe, the most pro competition.

There are many issues, as everyone knows, in the United States on which public opinion leans very much to the left of elite policy, but that's because public opinion hasn't been turned into a political force.

I believe that Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship are, and should be, key considerations in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East. Americans with roots or interests in the region should be involved in advocacy and discussions of public policy concerning the region.

The policy that received more attention particularly in the past decade and a half or so has been the US cocaine policy, the differential treatment of crack versus powder cocaine and question is how my research impacted my view on policy. Clearly that policy is not based on the weight of the scientific evidence. That is when the policy was implemented, the concern about crack cocaine was so great that something had to be done and congress acted in the only way they knew how, they passed policy and that's what a responsible society should do.

There's a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.

Public policy is designed by spin doctors who aim to keep our heads below the water. The public good is not a consideration, and their self-serving agendas prevail over common sense.

Criticism of a policy is welcome. But in the garb of criticizing a policy, if you allege that the policy was made for corrupt purposes, I reject it.

I'm opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.

To operate with the aspiration of color-blindness in a country whose central operating mechanism for centuries has been race belies the logic of race-neutral public policy. Public policy must account for the historic and intentional pillaging of resources experienced by black Americans.

Hillary Clinton believes that it's vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private.

The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.

A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once policy is determined, you call on them to help you sell it.

Public opinion shapes public policy dramatically.

Foreign policy is inseparable from domestic policy now. Is terrorism foreign policy or domestic policy? It's both. It's the same with crime, with the economy, climate change.

The process for producing public policy in Congress is flawed. The process itself kills policy ideas through the bypassing of the rules and procedural decisions that limit discussion.

I believe in an America ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.

I think that passion is the secret ingredient that drives hard work and excellence. My passion is to serve the public: to be in the arena of public policy, to have the opportunity to solve problems for our country, to be in a position where I can make a difference.

Family farmers are victims of public policy that gives preference to feeding animals over feeding people. This has encouraged the cheap grain policy of this nation and has made the beef cartel the biggest hog at the trough.

Utah has benefited from setting smart tax policy. That said, public finding is dynamic enough that we cannot just set the tax policy and presume that it does not require continual review and adjustment.

If the Federal Reserve pursues a policy which Congress or the President believes not to be in the public interest, there is nothing Congress can do to reverse the policy. Nor is there anything the people can do. Such bastions of unaccountable power are undemocratic. The Federal Reserve System must be reformed, so that it is answerable to the elected representatives of the people.

The decision over Heathrow expansion exemplifies the style of policy-making that starts with capitulation to a powerful self-interested lobby, blatantly fixes a public consultation and then drives through a policy that destroys any vestiges of green credentials the government had left.

There's no question that public opinion is changing, and if you're a person of the left, your goal is presumably to try to mobilize public opinion to affect elite policy; and I think now there are unusual, unprecedented opportunities to do so.

The Federal Reserve and other central banks have adopted broad public policy objectives to guide the development and oversight of the payments system. At the Fed, we have identified efficiency and safety as our most fundamental objectives, as set forth in our Policy on Payment System Risk.

If the public understands the central bank's views on the economy and monetary policy, then households and businesses will take those views into account in making their spending and investment plans; policy will be more effective as a result.

American public policy is run on a myth.

Indeed the three policy pillars of the neoliberal age-privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending-are each incompatible with many of the actions we must take to bring our emissions to safe levels.

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.

But, that’s the whole point of corporatization - to try to remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run - which includes production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything - are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.

See, technology can advance yield and productivity, but only public policy can advance the income of farmers. There has to be a synergy between technology and public policy.

Policy is largely set by economic elites and organized groups representing business interests with little concern for public attitudes or public safety, as long as the public remains passive and obedient.

Under the rule of the "free market" ideology, we have gone through two decades of an energy crisis without an effective energy policy. Because of an easy and thoughtless reliance on imported oil, we have no adequate policy for the conservation of gasoline and other petroleum products. We have no adequate policy for the development or use of other, less harmful forms of energy. We have no adequate system of public transportation.

Conscious of our many problems, I seek today to lay a foundation to our public policy. My fundamental purpose is to devote my term of office to raising the standard of public service in New Jersey.

. . when the target of crime is armed, there is more law present, more public policy present, and more public interest served than by all 20,000 gun laws in force.

Good policy always trumps bad public relations and the best PR can't trump bad policy.

It is the inevitable effect of religion on public policy that makes it a matter of public concern. Advocates of religiosity extol the virtues or moral habits that religion is supposed to instill in us. But we should be equally concerned with the intellectual habits it discourages.

I think any public policy that doesn't account for the fact that most CO2 emissions don't come from the United States, but they come from other countries, is a flawed policy. So let's not unilaterally tax our power, our people, to solve a global problem.

I think, Tom Friedman is right, and I think that we have to - we have to have a serious public dialogue to try to shift public policy in that regard.

A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.

The major economic policy challenges facing the nation today - pick your favorites among the usual suspects of low public and household savings, concerns about educational quality and achievement, high and rising income inequality, the large imbalances between our social insurance commitments and resources - are not about monetary policy.

We believe that we can win seats with integrity, with good public policy, with evidence-based public policy and that's what it's about for me.

Avoid any specific discussion of public policy at public meetings.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

RTE was set up by legislation as an instrument of public policy, and, as such is responsible to the government. The government have overall responsibility for its conduct, and especially the obligation to ensure that its programmes do not offend against the public interest or conflict with national policy as defined in legislation. To this extent the government rejected the view that RTE should be, either generally or in regard to its current affairs programmes, completely independent of government supervision.

Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government.