William Niskanen Quotations

Bush is going to have to sacrifice people who have worked with him to regain some initiative.

Bush has got a big hole to dig himself out of,

It bothers me enormously how we've responded to this problem. This is just way out of bounds.

It is most unlikely that they will continue to invest as much in dollars as they have. This is the major financial crisis. The dollar would go down. Interest rates would go up. The housing bubble would end.

Marty has something of a tin ear for politics, and that would be a problem in the Fed chairman's job.

I think he's done an extraordinarily good job. I worry, however, that the wisdom he has brought to that job has not been institutionalized in the Fed.

That was the case with the Reagan administration in 1986.

We have known about it for a year or two, and we haven't done anything.

The president's plan is a big change from what has been the traditional federal role in disasters.

An impeachment itself would reduce the uncertainty. An impeachment would take the volatility out (of the market) to the extent that the volatility was caused by questions of who would be president.

That's not what senior executives ought to be doing with their time. They ought to be worrying about business decisions.

There's too much incentive for big corporations to acquire other smaller companies and overpaying for them, rather than giving money back to shareholders.

I'm guessing it's not going to go anywhere unless there's significant Democratic support.

He's provided good political judgment on campaigns, but not good political judgment on getting legislation through.