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" Lunchroom economic conversations are inevitably graced with at least one statement from an old-timer along the lines of, 'In my day, we walked 10 miles in the snow just to get to the recession.' In fact, the nature of recessions hasn't changed much over the years. "

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" The most real characters in a great play are those who are so meticulously drawn that the audience could predict how many pairs of shoes they might have in their closet or how many close friends they had in grade school. Have any of our public figures been as fully developed in the media? "

Kevin Hassett

Shoes

Great

Friends

" Economists have the same occupational hazard as baseball managers and football coaches: Every person on the street knows their job better than they do. "

" There is no tax policy that better describes how out of touch America's liberals are with the rest of the country than the estate tax. According to the Left, government seizure of a large share of the wealth of an American taxpayer is a moral imperative that serves social justice. Most Americans disagree, big time. "

" The term 'business cycle' is imprecise. Economic fluctuations affect everyone, not just businesses, and they are, unlike astral cycles, anything but regular. "

" For an American, as mad you may be about whatever the EPA or the IRS does, just imagine if you only had a one twenty-eighth vote over what it does. You were in this place with this big bureaucracy that sets rules, and you only have a small vote. You'd feel like you've given up your sovereignty, wouldn't you? "

" Liberalized trade - in broadly multilateral, regional, or bilateral agreements - is a key ingredient in the recipe for prosperity... An absolute prerequisite for long-term economic growth is full participation in the global economy and trading system. "

" When a totally offensive tax hits a few million people, Washington is prepared to look the other way. But when everyone is harmed, self preservation kicks in, and Washington gets going. "

" Socialized medicine allows a nation to exclude a U.S. product from its market if the U.S. firm does not make generous enough price concessions. Accordingly, what has developed is a system within which U.S. firms make large profits on new drugs in the U.S. market, but very low profits on sales everywhere else. "

" The problem is that there is no reliable source of information left, no way to accumulate trusted accounts of the plusses and minuses of any given political choice. "

" One of my favorite indicators of the near-term trend for the economy is auto sales, since folks tend to buy a car when they are feeling optimistic about their financial circumstances. "

" There are folks who we have a moral responsibility to help, who are going to cost the taxpayers lots of money in the future, so there's a strong argument for us to help them with current cash. "

" The fact is that any carbon legislation is designed to make us not use coal. So if you're a state that has a lot of coal, you're going to get hammered. "

Kevin Hassett

Coal

Legislation

" Given the importance of Washington, outsiders probably have an unrealistic perspective on how large the city is. The fact is, Washington D.C. is a small town, and most everyone knows most everyone else. That person of the other party who you despise will someday be at your daughter's birthday party. "

" Today we hear that the gains from economic growth accrue to the highest-income earners while the standard of living of the poor and middle America stagnates and the gap between the richest and the poorest grows ever wider. That portrait of the country is wrong. "

" What we should do, if you want to give more money to the people who are currently unemployed, just give them the money. Give them a lump sum of cash. Don't make them stay unemployed for another three months in order to get the checks. "

" I prefer to listen to people who change their mind now and then. "

" Historically, figuring out what to do to the tax code has been almost as contentious a political issue as judicial appointments. "

" I think that one of the things that we have to recognize is that the longer somebody doesn't have a job, the harder it is to get a new job. You know, the reality is that if you're out of job, and you're looking for a job, then the new employer's going to say, 'Well, why, you know, don't you have a job now? What's wrong with you?' "

" We've created the class of folks who are unemployed for longer than a year that it's very, very difficult to reconnect to society. "

" If you want to help the poor, help the poor, and with your own time and money. Liberals prefer to do it with someone else's, which is why they love the estate tax. "

" Too often, politics is like bad theater. The mass media simplifies stories and personalities into their most basic, digestible and familiar bits. Listeners prefer songs they have heard before, after all. "

" If the U.S. doubled its total immigration and prioritized bringing in new workers, it could add more than half a percentage point a year to expected GDP growth. "

Kevin Hassett

New

Immigration

" If someone builds a fortune, it belongs to him, not the government. An entitled government undermines liberty. "

" If you look at the geographic variation in long-term unemployment, it's really striking. There are pockets where employers don't want to go, but for some reason, in part because of adequate safety nets, people don't want to leave. "

" I am actually an open borders kind of guy. "