Richard Lamm

Politician

61 Quotes

American public policy is run on a myth.

It was almost a desecration to put a building on the Boulder Turnpike, which is now U.S.-36 and is almost backyards and even junkyards all the way up. We didn't have to put development just cheek to jowl all the way up to Boulder. There's enough room in Colorado! But we did.

Many seniors understand that Social Security is social insurance as opposed to a program where we put money aside for our own retirement. But most elderly individuals think they're getting their money back. So it isn't selfishness as much as a misunderstanding.

Amnesty is a big billboard, a flashing billboard, to the rest of the world that we don't really mean our immigration law.

A nation can't get strong on political pablum.

The approaching exhaustion of domestic reserves of petroleum and the rapid depletion of world reserves will have a profound effect on Americans in the cities and on the farms.

Politics is a love-hate relationship. I sure know that.

I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification - education, hard work, success, and ambition - are those groups that succeed in America, regardless of discrimination.

God is not an American. Nature did not design Americans to be prosperous forever.

America has to ask itself not what it wants, but what it can afford.

The environment issue is hydra-headed and complicated, but it is of immense importance that we understand how fast the world is changing.

I believe a nation does not maximize its health care until it starts to ask the hard question: How can we prioritize our expenditures to buy the most health care for the most people? We should not apologize for rationing; we should promote it and advance it.

Sprawl is the American ideal way to develop.

The U.S. needs to do more than change presidents. It needs to change its political culture.

We must recognize that all the civil rights laws in the world are not going to solve the problem of minority underachievement. Ultimately, blacks and Hispanics are going to have to see that their solution is largely in their own hands.

Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it.

It is clear that agriculture as we know it has experienced major changes within the life expectancy of most of us, and these changes have caused a major further deterioration of worldwide levels of nutrition.

I believe for some high-technology medicine, like transplants and kidney dialysis, age should be a consideration in the delivery of that technology. In a world of limited resources, we have a larger duty to a 10-year-old than to a 90-year-old.

Everything we do in public policy prevents us from doing something else. To govern is to choose.

You know, 600,000 millionaires get a Social Security check every month. I think there's enough waste and inefficiency.

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