Quote

Obama, startled that components of government behave as interest groups, seems utterly unfamiliar with public choice theory. It demystifies and de-romanticizes politics by applying economic analysis - how incentives influence behavior - to government.

George Will

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Will
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: May 4
Columnist
Journalist
Champaign
Illinois
George F. Will
George Frederick Will
Choices
Obama
Startled
Politics
Behavior
Applying
Choice
Unfamiliar
Interest
Groups
Incentives
Seems
Theory
Components
Government
Influence
Utterly
Economic
Analysis
Public
Behave

More quotes by George Will

Image
I say statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, most legislation is moral legislations because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres in life.
George Will
Image
Democrats believe, plausibly, that middle-class entitlements are instantly addictive and, because there is no known detoxification, that class, when facing future choices between trimming entitlements or increasing taxes, will choose the latter.
George Will
Image
We have 3,141 counties in this country. That would be 20 per county. The idea that we can't assimilate these 8-year-old criminals with their teddy bears is preposterous.
George Will
Image
The phrase 'domestic cat' is an oxymoron.
George Will
Image
The unpleasant sound Bush is emitting as he traipses from one conservative gathering to another is a thin, tinny arf - the sound of a lap dog.
George Will
Image
Liberalism is wrong because it doesn't work. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.
George Will
Image
All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.
George Will
Image
It is no exaggeration to conclude that the Internet has achieved, and continues to achieve, the most participatory marketplace of mass speech that this country - and indeed the world - has yet seen.
George Will
Image
Each achieves one or both of two objectives — making liberals feel good about themselves and being good to liberal candidates.
George Will
Image
As Aristotle said, happiness is not a condition that is produced or stands on its own rather, it is a frame of mind that accompanies an activity. But another frame of mind comes first. It is a steely determination to do well.
George Will
Image
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration - and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration - is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
George Will
Image
Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophic baggage other than a fervent belief in their right to the pursuit of happiness.
George Will
Image
It (baseball) has no clock, no ties and no Liberal intrusions into the organized progression.
George Will
Image
Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.
George Will
Image
The best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering disappointments.
George Will
Image
Since the emergence of the Republican Party, only two Democratic presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, have been followed by Democrats, and both FDR and JFK died in office, so their successors ran as incumbents.
George Will
Image
Romney, supposedly the Republican most electable next November, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable he might damage GOP chances of capturing the Senate... Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis.
George Will
Image
The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.
George Will
Image
When a politician says the debate is over, you can be sure of two things the debate is raging and he's losing it.
George Will
Image
Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
George Will