Romer Quotes

As an economic historian, I appreciate what manufacturing has contributed to the United States. It was the engine of growth that allowed us to win two world wars and provided millions of families with a ticket to the middle class. But public policy needs to go beyond sentiment and history. ~ Christina Romer

If you think about it, candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, was running on sort of long-run economic issues, like restoring prosperity to the middle class, dealing with the perennial problem of health care in the United States. He talked a lot about the budget deficit, about the need to transition to clean energy. ~ Christina Romer

The most effective way to shake an economy out of a terrible downturn when we're at the zero lower bound is an aggressive change in policy that makes people wake up, say 'this is a new day' and change their expectations. ~ Christina Romer

The need for a college education is even more important now than it was before, but I think that the increased costs are a very severe obstacle to access. It is an American dream, and I think that one of our challenges is to find a way to make that available. ~ Roy Romer

The stock market crash in October 1929 didn't destroy a particularly large amount of wealth or make people highly pessimistic. Rather, it made companies and consumers very unsure about future income, and so led them to stop spending as they waited for more information. ~ Christina Romer

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. ~ Christina Romer

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

With lab courses, we may be able to simulate a lot of that and reduce costs. ~ Roy Romer

Many of my students assume that government protection is the only thing ensuring decent wages for most American workers. But basic economics shows that competition between employers for workers can be very effective at preventing businesses from misbehaving. ~ Christina Romer

The most 'authoritative' accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels existed by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, 'like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures
the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John. ~ Frank Butcher

Where we're coming down is we currently have $787 billion of stimulus that's been passed. We're certainly focusing on spending that money as quickly and as efficiently and as transparently as we can. We think that's absolutely the right strategy. ~ Christina Romer

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. ~ Christina Romer

Fewer people working means permanently lower tax revenues. ~ Christina Romer

Possibilities don't add up, they multiply. ~ Paul Romer

Blind Thrust' kept me up until 1 a.m. two nights in a row. I could not put it down. An intriguing mystery that intertwined geology, fracking, and places in Colorado that I know well. Great fun. ~ Colorado Governor Roy R. Romer

I'm not just a politician, I'm a guy who has a real deep, substantive, commitment to education. ~ Roy Romer

Enrollment in Colorado is expected to expand about 25 percent in seven years. It's very difficult to find those additional funds. Therefore, I think you're probably going to have increased pressure on tuition. ~ Roy Romer

The basic idea that if you increase government spending or you cut people's taxes that stimulates the economy and lowers the unemployment rate, is a very widely accepted idea. It's in every economics textbook, that's what we teach our undergraduates, and I certainly try to teach them the truth. ~ Christina Romer

Growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking. ~ Paul Romer

Once we admit that there is room for newness - that there are vastly more conceivable possibilities than realized outcomes - we must confront the fact that there is no special logic behind the world we inhabit, no particular justification for why things are the way they are. Any number of arbitrarily small perturbations along the way could have made the world as we know it turn out very differently. ~ Paul Romer

If you look at the studies coming out of the Congressional Budget Office, the number one thing that's going to blow a hole in the deficit as we go forward 20, 30 years is government spending on healthcare. ~ Christina Romer

The very first email I got [was] from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.' ~ Christina Romer

A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it's better to produce 'real things' than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers. ~ Christina Romer

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. ~ Christina Romer

I have observed private and proprietary colleges, like the University of Phoenix, and the market they serve. And I found it intriguing the way in which they are trying to deliver the product, with more accountability, for a price. ~ Roy Romer

We can do better in higher education. And it is more than just technology. It's also an attitude on the part of faculty. We need to think through how we can produce a better quality product at less cost. ~ Roy Romer

The central question is whether Medicare and Medicaid should remain entitlement programs guaranteeing a certain amount of care, as Democrats believe, or become defined contribution programs in which federal spending is capped, as Republicans suggest. ~ Christina Romer

Common standards ensure that every child across the country is getting the best possible education, no matter where a child lives or what their background is. The common standards will provide an accessible roadmap for schools, teachers, parents and students, with clear and realistic goals. ~ Roy Romer

Maybe this journey is a way for you to get your redemption..." he said softly, "Maybe, if Elder Man Belduran is right, it is the start of a journey, that leads to redemption for all of us..."

"Not all of us... There's no redemption for Elder Man Vaymaz..." Melchor replied softly, before turning and continuing to walk. ~ Nathalie M.L. Romer

You know, I think the, the crucial thing, you know, we have put in place what is, is just simply the biggest, boldest recovery package in history, right; the stimulus package, biggest ever; the financial rescue, absolutely comprehensive; a housing plan - that is incredible medicine for the economy. And we fully expect it to work. ~ Christina Romer

One of the things that we're all struggling with is how to judge the quality of the value-added experience of an educational course or year. I don't think it's impossible to do that, but it's difficult. ~ Roy Romer

The stimulus legislation, technically known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was a mixture of tax cuts for families and businesses; increased transfer payments, like unemployment insurance; and increased direct government spending, like infrastructure investment. ~ Christina Romer

As a former member of President Obama's economic team, I have a soft spot for the fiscal stimulus legislation he signed just a month after his inauguration. ~ Christina Romer

Every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new ideas ... Possibilities do not add up. They multiply. ~ Paul Romer

I think the American people were saying we do not want to have further investigation. We want to close this off. They clearly made a separation between the personal conduct .. They want Congress to wrap it up, get it behind them, so we can get on to the issues that the president has been working with Congress. ~ Roy Romer

President Obama has repeatedly urged Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Increasing rates on top earners is an obvious way to raise revenue from those who can afford it most. ~ Christina Romer

This nation has been drifting back in comparison with the rest of the world for the last 20 years in education. ~ Roy Romer

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. ~ Christina Romer

Productivity is going to be a critical issue. And it's not just about getting more time for professors in the classroom. It involves reexamining the learning experience and restructuring faculty and the use of faculty time. ~ Roy Romer

Cold-turkey deficit reduction would cause a significant recession. A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that going headlong over the cliff would cause our gross domestic product, which has been growing at an annual rate of around 2 percent, to fall at a rate of 2.9 percent in the first half of 2013. ~ Christina Romer

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. ~ Paul Romer

Let's take flight simulation as an example. If you're trying to train a pilot, you can simulate almost the whole course. You don't have to get in an airplane until late in the process. ~ Roy Romer

If every other store in town is paying workers $9 an hour, one offering $8 will find it hard to hire anyone - perhaps not when unemployment is high, but certainly in normal times. Robust competition is a powerful force helping to ensure that workers are paid what they contribute to their employers' bottom lines. ~ Christina Romer

In the four decades after World War II, manufacturing jobs paid more than other jobs for given skills. But that is much less true today. Increased international competition has forced American manufacturers to reduce costs. As a result, the pay premium for low-skilled workers in manufacturing is smaller than it once was. ~ Christina Romer

But in the free market system, you're forced to change. ~ Roy Romer

The right way to deal with a budget problem that was years in the making is by formulating a credible plan to reduce the deficit over time and as the economy is able to withstand the necessary fiscal belt-tightening. That is what President Obama is doing. ~ Christina Romer

I think where I differ a little bit, we absolutely have to think about the deficit looking down the road. And certainly that's something the president has said that we need to, as the economy recovers, have a plan in place for getting it down. ~ Christina Romer

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. ~ Christina Romer

We're committed to working with Congress to doing what the president said he was always going to do, which is cut the deficit in half over the - over his first term. ~ Christina Romer

Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little. ~ Christina Romer

I do think there is something to be said for those who have significant experience at state level and have run campaigns or have been deeply involved in grass roots political campaigns and who have actual hands-on experience. ~ Roy Romer

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

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. ~ Christina Romer

If increasing income equality is the goal, it might be wiser to put money into infrastructure than to subsidize manufacturing. Construction also pays good wages, but with lower educational requirements. And America's infrastructure needs are enormous. ~ Christina Romer

You care about the deficit because it allows you to do things you need to do to help people who are suffering. ~ Christina Romer

You can take a school like the University of Colorado, with a selective admission standard. It has a better caliber student going in, so you ought to have a better caliber coming out. ~ Roy Romer

But you take a four-year state college, with a broader range of admission, and what happens during those four years may be an even greater value-added educational experience. I don't know. ~ Roy Romer

I think the big force is going to be consumer buying power. ~ Roy Romer

What we're going to do is redouble our efforts on financial regulatory reform, because that has in it sensible things like say on pay, so at least the shareholders are minding the store, sensible things like saying, for heaven's sakes, compensation should be focused on - on long term, so that you don't have rewards for short-term risk-taking. ~ Christina Romer