Austan Goolsbee Quotes

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Austan Goolsbee

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : August 18, 1969

If you had asked people in 1929, 'Here is what is about to happen. How much would you pay to avoid the Great Depression from occurring?' The answer is they would have paid a lot. They would have borrowed money if it could be used to prevent the Great Depression.

Austan Goolsbee

The share of income that small business people are paying in taxes is the lowest it has been in 65 years - since Obama has cut taxes 18 or 22 times for small business.

Austan Goolsbee

If you look at the Greek economic record, it's been very similar to the U.S. experience in the first four years of the Great Depression. And after having a Depression-sized event, they've cut the unit-labor cost in Greece - they've closed something like half the gap with Germany.

Austan Goolsbee

We enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We're throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big.

Austan Goolsbee

You can't look back at the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes that started in 2008 and not have some important lessons about the critical nature of oversights in financial markets and institutions.

Austan Goolsbee

Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA.

Austan Goolsbee

Let's pass the small business credit enhancement bill so small business can get back on its feet.

Austan Goolsbee

One of the most interesting things that I'm seeing of the Trump picks is such a heavy business and financial focus. I can't help but feel like this is going to throw a lot of policy weight and details back to Congress, because these are not people who have a lot of experience drafting legislation.

Austan Goolsbee

I was named DC's funniest celebrity.

Austan Goolsbee

The only question where there is disagreement is should the highest income rates above a quarter million dollars a year go back to where they were under Bill Clinton. That is the dispute about the taxes.

Austan Goolsbee

The debt ceiling is not something to toy with.

Austan Goolsbee

I believe - I'm not a political expert, but I believe there is a broad consensus, a middle ground if you will, that Democrats and Republicans, business people and workers can agree on, to get this - the economy growing faster, getting people back to work.

Austan Goolsbee

All I'll say is if you look at countries where it is - where they are rapidly growing, they're investing in their infrastructure. They're investing in their educations. They are trying to streamline regulations, but they're not neglecting key investments.

Austan Goolsbee

A lot more people are willing to invest in bonds denominated in euros. And there was the fiscal discipline argument, which is that this tied the hands of countries the market hasn't always trusted, which also helped them borrow at low rates.

Austan Goolsbee

The president is 100 percent for extending the tax cuts for 98.7 percent of small businesses.

Austan Goolsbee

If a lobbyist sets up shop, or a lawyer, in which they're receiving income through what is something like a tax loophole so that it's not counting as corporate income, that is what this is counting as a small business.

Austan Goolsbee

Cutting taxes for very high income people an average of more than $100,000 a year for people that make more than a million dollars a year is not an effective way to get the economy going.

Austan Goolsbee

If we hit the debt ceiling, that's... essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic.

Austan Goolsbee

We know there are a lot of people in the unemployment pool that do not match up in their skill set for what jobs are going to be created, and that's an area we've got to keep pressing on.

Austan Goolsbee

Whenever I interview someone for a job, I always ask them whether they want to sit in Bernanke's chair. The only wrong answer is, 'Who's Bernanke?'.

Austan Goolsbee