Eliot Spitzer – 35 Quotes

35 Quotes by Eliot Spitzer

In politics you learn to always smile.

– Eliot Spitzer

A year is an eternity in politics – though less than a moment in history.

– Eliot Spitzer

Sometimes in politics, you think you’ve seen it all. Turns out I was wrong.

– Eliot Spitzer

I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas.

– Eliot Spitzer

It’s time to let science and medicine, not politics and rhetoric, lead us to good, sound policy.

– Eliot Spitzer

I stand before you today because this vision of government as the engine of opportunity is what I believe in.

– Eliot Spitzer

Companies that pollute should be taxed so that a product’s cost to society is reflected in the price of that product.

– Eliot Spitzer

Yes, people pull the trigger – but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror.

– Eliot Spitzer

Health care reform, the marquee legislative accomplishment of the Obama administration’s first term, was passed before we entered the world of divided government.

– Eliot Spitzer

For me, journalism has been more a matter of projecting a particular approach to covering policies, to covering issues. It was a continuation of what I tried to do in government.

– Eliot Spitzer

In the melting pot that is America, inclusive trumps exclusive. Whether it’s single women, young adults, or minorities, alienating the rapidly growing voting blocs is not smart politics.

– Eliot Spitzer

Technology is neutral: It convicts and finds innocents. We must make it a regularized part of the system, giving defendants access to DNA testing and evidence whenever it might be relevant.

– Eliot Spitzer

President Obama is doing the right thing by offering young immigrants, most often in this country through no action of their own, a chance to live and work openly, free from the fear of deportation.

– Eliot Spitzer

I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong. I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.

– Eliot Spitzer

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shook our nation to the core. Americans were deeply frightened, sad, and angry, and they rallied around a President who, at the time, showed impressive certitude and calm.

– Eliot Spitzer

Why does it have to be politics? Is there a dynamism to that world and a theoretical capacity to do things that draws many talented people? Absolutely. Are there other ways to be involved and lead an interesting life? Of course.

– Eliot Spitzer

After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society.

– Eliot Spitzer

I think President Obama could have handled politics and policies differently. But he has been decisive, strong, and consistent – important qualities in a president. Mitt Romney is indeed an Etch A Sketch, the antithesis of leadership.

– Eliot Spitzer

Facts matter. Science matters. Reason matters. Mitt Romney has shown an inability to respect any of the three. President Barack Obama not only respects them, he relies on them. He is an overwhelming and unquestioned choice to continue as president.

– Eliot Spitzer

Power must be used, but it must be tempered by soul-searching and the recognition of our human capacity for error. That is the maxim that should inform our approach to every challenge, from reforming state government to engaging in foreign affairs.

– Eliot Spitzer

From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much – the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me.

– Eliot Spitzer

I love and always have loved policy issues and trying to have an impact on the issues that are out there. I cherish my years in government. I have loved my participation at CNN, at Current writing teaching. Where I will go next, I will have to sort out.

– Eliot Spitzer

The Occupy movement needs an organizing principle, and – just as the Tea Party did – it needs some actual measures of success. Choose one candidate whose agenda is squarely within that of the movement and make his or her electoral success a focal point.

– Eliot Spitzer

Some say that I should settle down, go slower and not push so hard, so quickly for such transformational change. To them, I say that you misunderstand the size of the problems we face, the strength of the status quo and the urgency of the people’s desire for change.

– Eliot Spitzer

A significant piece of the wealth that the NFL owners garner is a result of the enormous TV revenues they get – and those revenues are supported by a legislatively granted exemption from the antitrust laws that has been made applicable to sports leagues, primarily the NFL.

– Eliot Spitzer

As someone with a deep faith in competition and the market, I also know that markets only work with tough enforcement of the rules that guarantee competition and fair play – and that the pressure to break those rules only gets stronger as the amount of money involved gets larger.

– Eliot Spitzer

When the United States was founded, the very idea of a nation premised on democratic principles of freedom and tolerance was viewed by the vast majority of the world as an experiment doomed to fail. Dictatorships, monarchies, and theocracies had for many centuries ruled the world.

– Eliot Spitzer

Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don’t like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.

– Eliot Spitzer

The Republican argument that raising the debt ceiling encourages additional future spending is logically irresponsible. The debt ceiling has to be raised to authorize spending already approved by Congress. Despite that fallacy, the GOP has been able to score political points with its argument.

– Eliot Spitzer

I have long said there are three distinct groups under the GOP’s tent: theological warriors, who want to impose their social views on the rest of society Tea Party zealots, who say with a straight face that they want the government to get out of their Medicare and remnants of the pro-business moderates.

– Eliot Spitzer

The reality of split government puts a premium on creativity within the administration. President Obama needs to put the right people in charge of the agencies and then have them push the bounds of administrative power to change policy through those agencies. President Obama has a pretty good track record of this.

– Eliot Spitzer

Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.

– Eliot Spitzer

The irony is that it was tougher to rent a car from Cerberus when it owned Alamo than to buy a semi-automatic. To rent a car, one had to provide ID, a drivers’ license, and get insurance coverage. To buy a gun? Cash and carry, from the back of a station wagon at a gun show. No concerns about downstream liability or risk.

– Eliot Spitzer

We are all used to paying a sales tax when we buy things – almost 9 percent here in New York City. The application of this concept to the financial sector could solve our need for revenue, bring some sanity back into the financial sector, and give us a way to raise the revenue we need to run the government in a fiscally responsible way.

– Eliot Spitzer

Don’t reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a ‘moral hazard,’ because the bailout absolved the bank’s bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.

– Eliot Spitzer