Jack Kemp Quotations

There's no limit to what free men and free women in a free market with free enterprise can accomplish when people are free to follow their dream.

Winning is like shaving - you do it every day or you wind up looking like a bum.

He'll call that trickle-down. I call it Niagara Falls.

Taxes on capital, taxes on labor, inflation, bureaucratic regulation, minimum wage laws, are all - to different degrees - unnecessary slices of the wedge that stand between an individual's effort and reward for that effort.

With the end of the cold war, all the 'isms' of the 20th century - Fascism, Nazism, Communism and the evil of apartheid-ism - have failed. Except one. Only democracy has shown itself true the help of all mankind.

To Republicans, I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.

The real problem is deflation. That is the opposite of inflation but equally serious to the borrower.

Affirmative action based on quotas is wrong - wrong because it is antithetical to the genius of the American idea: individual liberty.

Ladies and gentlemen, communism didn't fall. It was pushed.

There is a kind of victory in good work, no matter how humble.

Economic growth doesn't mean anything if it leaves people out.

There really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the African American community at large.

There's only one race - it's human. We are all brothers and sisters.

American society as a whole can never achieve the outer-reaches of potential, so long as it tolerates the inner cities of despair.

There are no limits to our future if we don't put limits on our people.

The only thing I can do is tell the truth as I see it and let the chips fall where they may.

When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities.

I never met a poor person who wanted to soak the rich; they want to get rich.

I think Bush understands the Internet and the incredible expansion of global e-commerce.

All too often the Democratic Party has taken the black vote for granted, and all too often the Republican Party has written it off.

I am not antigovernment. I would not run a campaign against government.

I am shocked that Republicans can't explain why our technological and economic advantages are the result of sound monetary and economic policy.

I think I've advanced my views with compassion and tolerance.

I unabashedly, unashamedly, unequivocally support the explosion of entrepreneurs in the capitalist system.

If we are to change America, we must change the United States Congress.

My answer is unambiguously yes, ... It is a restriction that needs to be modified.

He gave the same old speech at 100 miles an hour and got a hard lesson in how far the base has moved away from that,

Laissez-faire, Darwinian capitalism is not going to work here. Markets do work, but they need the direction of government in situations like this.

Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.

I think Dick Gephardt has made a real error in calculating his possibilities for the year 2000 if that's what he's doing,

There are a lot of grotesqueries in politics, not the least of which is the fund-raising side.

With all due respect to the president, things are not going to bubble up from the bottom. There has to be some federal leadership here.

The supply-side claim is not a claim. It is empirically true and historically convincing that with lower rates of taxation on labor and capital, the factors of production, you'll get a bigger economy.

Bob, you have to win. I believe with all my heart that you are the right man for the job.

Every time in this century we've lowered the tax rates across the board, on employment, on saving, investment and risk-taking in this economy, revenues went up, not down.

Pro football gave me a good perspective. When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy.

There's no way you can compare a modest contribution from a so-called Hong Kong businessman with China trying to influence U.S. foreign policy and the sale of the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House,

I learned about the market's power when I was traded to the Buffalo Bills for $100.

I know that these are the words that express the true spirit of the Trent Lott who has been my friend for 40 years.

I know that Jim Gibbons as governor of Nevada will represent all the best of this state. I really believe that Jim - as a war hero, as a legislator, as a member of Congress - has spent his whole life preparing for this effort.

If you believe these polls, you're making a mistake.

If you're here legally, if you're here lawfully, you ought to be able to contribute to the candidate of your choice.

anxious to talk about race and related issues, but you can't have a dialogue on race behind closed doors.

The federal government is the only one that can provide immediate assistance.

We must win the war on poverty by enlisting the greatest weapon ever invented - free enterprise

The power of one man or one woman doing the right thing for the right reason, and at the right time, is the greatest influence in our society.

Conservatives define compassion not by the number of people who recieve some kind of government aid but rather by the number of people who no longer need it.

I believe in civil liberties for homosexuals. I guess I'd have to say I'd draw the line at letting them teach in the schools.

The chance to own a home; chance to own an education; chance to get access to capital. This is the real civil rights battle of the twenty-first century.

The only way to oppose a bad idea is to replace it with a good idea.

Our goals for this nation must be nothing less than to double the size of our economy and bring prosperity and jobs, ownership and equality of opportunity to all Americans, especially those living in our nation's pockets of poverty.

I have come to think that capital punishment should be abolished.

There ought to be a thoughtful welfare-reform debate that doesn't turn into something that could be called scapegoating.

In America, we tax work, investment, employment, savings, and production, while we subsidize non-work, consumption, and debt. It's time we reverse this trend.

My passion for ideas is not matched with a passion for partisan or electoral politics.

... giving tax incentives for more labor ownership of company stock will do more to create jobs and increase productivity than all the "emergency full employment" bills proposed.

When democratic governments create economic calamity, free markets get the blame.

Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.

Democracy without morality is impossible.

Lately the First Amendment has been interpreted to deny equal protection of the law to those who believe in God. The Constitution established freedom for religion, not freedom from religion!

We want peace with all our hearts. But peace cannot be achieved through weakness.

Quarterbacks are always ready.

I've been a kind of a wildcatter. I've been able to say anything I wanted.

The Democratic Party is the party of the status quo.

I don't use labels a lot.

I can't hide my feelings.

There are a lot of grotesqueries in politics, not the least of which is the fund-raising side.

We don't need to bring down the rich folk to help the poor.

People want opportunity so they can earn security.

Health care amounts to l4% of our GNP-a lot of money. It is the size of the Italian economy. And the president turned it over to his wife.

You cannot create employees without first creating employers.

I can't understand why the Democratic parties seem so hostile to economic growth and business.

The only law we broke was the Brezhnev doctrine that once a country is in the Soviet bloc it cannot be overthrown.

The leaders of the Democratic Party aren't soft on Communism. They're soft on Democracy.

Of course, every job I ever had I thought I was born for.

There's always cause for concern if bad policies are pursued.

The Soviet Union represents a threat in terms of might. It is a joke in terms of its economy and what it has to offer the Third World - a laughingstock to countries that are looking for an economic-development model.

You don't boo at a Kemp rally. You boo at football games.

I can't help but care about the rights of the people I used to shower with.

The problem is that the economy isn't growing fast enough to accommodate the level of spending produced through the democratic process.

Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective to enter politics: I'd already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy.

I learned about the market's power when I was traded to the Buffalo Bills for $100.

I would be a fool to put my feet down in a position where I can't accommodate metamorphoses.

In a recent fire Bob Dole's library burned down. Both books were lost. And he hadn't even finished coloring one of them.

Republicans many times can't get the words 'equality of opportunity' out of their mouths. Their lips do not form that way.

Some people have theorized that I lurched to prove myself intellectually. But it was not any lurch. It was more a kind of awakening.

I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport.

We are going to make sure that America is open to legal immigration because that is wealth and the talent and the entrepreneurial skills for the 21st Century.

We are all the sons or daughters of immigrants - some more recent than others - but all dedicated to the triumph of an idea that serves as the touchstone of what it means to be an American. This America is the only America that we have hitherto known - if being conservative has anything to do with conserving the principles of our past, then no conservative has any business bashing legal immigration.

Football is a metaphor for the kind of country we want to create. It's based on merit.

I played football.. my football was kosher.. no pigskin.

Democracy is not a mathematical deduction proved once and for all time. Democracy is a just faith fervently held, commitment to be tested again and again in the fiery furnace of history.

Its no secret that I've never liked tax credits.

My wife had a miscarriage. We have rarely talked about it. It did make me more aware of the sanctity of human life, how precious every child is.

I think the American people want to see the interactivity between candidates and audiences, and tough questions posed by people and how you handle them under fire.

The zeitgeist is for cutting spending and balancing the budget. But I do not want the Republican Party to be perceived as putting the budget ahead of people, jobs and education.

Every team requires unity. A team has to move as one unit, one force, with each person understanding and assisting the roles of his teammates. If the team doesn't do this, whatever the reason, it goes down in defeat. You win or lose as a team, as a family.

You could tell he was just way too drunk! By the time the light turned green he hits the gas and he spins out and he takes out a sign and he comes all the way back across the median on to the other side of the road.

We have a chance to bring freedom to all of Asia, including China, and we should pursue it with a very positive engagement proposal of trade and strict adherence to human rights,

He's made some faux pas. When he said 'I'm Bob Dole's right arm,' I couldn't believe it.