Honest talk about the deficit is risky. Voters are more enthusiastic about the abstract notion of deficit reduction than about the painful details of accomplishing it.

Tax increases appear to have a very large sustained and highly significant negative impact on output.

Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly 3 percent. The effect is highly significant.

Climate change and dependence on foreign oil are problems that won't go away on their own. Tabling plans to deal with them doesn't make it easier for companies to plan and invest; it makes it harder.

A natural way that an economist approaches a problem is to say, here's where I think the economy is going; this is what we need to deal with the problem.

What I desire to point out is that I wish the law was not so, but that being the law, I must follow it.

Making labor less expensive helps firms hire people.

Raising the minimum wage, as President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address, tends to be more popular with the general public than with economists.

Recent research suggests that New Deal programs may actually have had their primary impact on the economy by influencing consumer and business expectations of future growth and inflation.

Fewer people working means permanently lower tax revenues.

I think something that forces financial institutions to write down underwater mortgages, I think, would be a sensible thing to do.

It is born in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching the goal. The tragedy of life lies in having no goal to reach.

The greatest achievement of humanity is the human spirit.

Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.

Christianity israrely understood by those outside its bounds. In fact, this is probably one of the greatest tasks confronting the apologist–to rescue Christianity from misunderstandings.

I think the fact that I was raised in show business, in New York City, in the '50s, that's affected my personality to the point that I'm a little different.

The elements were "seeking" each other in rage and confusion, and in the fury of the conflict boastful man was utterly humiliated, sucked down, drowned.

The fool who repeats again and again: "I am bound, I am bound," remains in bondage. He who repeats day and night: "I am a sinner, I am a sinner," becomes a sinner indeed.

Jesus has not promised to build your ministry; he has promised to build his church.

The uglier, older, meaner, iller, poorer I get, the more I wish to take my revenge by doing brilliant color, well arranged, resplendent.

The power and magic of music lie in its intangibility and its limitlessness. It suggests images, but leaves us free to choose them and to accommodate them to our pleasure.