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" Much of what's called 'public' is increasingly a private good paid for by users - ever-higher tolls on public highways and public bridges, higher tuitions at so-called public universities, higher admission fees at public parks and public museums. "

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" Teachers, social workers, public lawyers who bring companies to justice, government accountants who try to make sure money is spent as it should be - all need at least four years of college. "

Robert Reich

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" In 1968, the sanitation workers of Memphis tried to form a union. The city resisted. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. "

" Community colleges are great bargains. They avoid the fancy amenities four-year liberal arts colleges need in order to lure the children of the middle class. "

" In the 1980s, corporate raiders began mounting unfriendly takeovers of companies that could deliver higher returns to their shareholders - if they abandoned their other stakeholders. "

" The Tea Party grew out of indignation over the Wall Street bailout - an indignation shared by the vast majority of Americans. But the Tea Party ended up directing its ire at government rather than at big business and Wall Street. "

" A Democratic president should propose a major permanent tax reduction on the middle class and working class. I suspect most of the public would find this attractive. "

" Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have more money and everyone else has less. But they're wrong. It's just the opposite. "

" Median wages of production workers, who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, haven't risen in 30 years, adjusted for inflation. "

" Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all. "

" Globalization and free trade do spur economic growth, and they lead to lower prices on many goods. "

" Increasingly, corporate nationality is whatever a corporation decides it is. "

" Rather than subsidize 'American' exporters, it makes more sense to subsidize any global company - to the extent it's adding to its exports from the United States. "

" Your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your most precious possession is the people you have working there, and what they carry around in their heads, and their ability to work together. "

" We don't have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth. "

" It's true that redistributing income to the needy is politically easier in a growing economy than in a stagnant one. "

" I'm not one of those who thinks the only way to fix what's wrong with American education is to throw more money at it. We also need to do it much better. "

" Official boundaries are often hard to see. If you head north on Woodward Avenue, away from downtown Detroit, you wouldn't know exactly when you left the city and crossed over into Oakland County - except for a small sign that tells you. "

" 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. "

" We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives. "

" Sugary drinks are blamed for increasing the rates of chronic disease and obesity in America. Yet efforts to reduce their consumption through taxes or other measures have gone nowhere. The beverage industry has spent millions defeating them. "

" What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society. "

" I'm all in favor of supporting fancy museums and elite schools, but face it: These aren't really charities as most people understand the term. "

" It is hard to bite the hands that feed you, especially when you are competing for food. "

" When times are tough, public employees should have to make the same sacrifices as everyone else. "

" You might say those who can't repay their student debts shouldn't have borrowed in the first place. But they had no way of knowing just how bad the jobs market would become. "

" We never used to blink at taking a leadership role in the world. And we understood leadership often required something other than drones and bombs. We accepted global leadership not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because it was in our own best interest. We knew we couldn't isolate ourselves from trouble. There was no place to hide. "

" We need a national infrastructure bank to rebuild our crumbling highways and water and sewer systems, thereby putting additional people back to work. "

" Political scientists after World War II hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations - clubs, associations, political parties, unions - to which politicians were responsive. "

" Medical costs are soaring because our health-care system is totally screwed up. Doctors and hospitals have every incentive to spend on unnecessary tests, drugs, and procedures. "

" Limits should be placed on how big big banks can become. "