7 George H. W. Bush Quotes on Policy

George H. W. Bush quotes on policy

2. Voodoo economics.

5. I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And The Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, Read my lips: no new taxes.

11. Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.

15. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome.

16. Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power - America in an Arab land - with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous. We don't gain the size of our victory by how many innocent kids running away - even though they're bad guys - that we can slaughter. ... We're American soldiers; we don't do business that way.

18. Most of the money that President Clinton and I raised has not been spent yet, and it will go into reconstruction. ... This is bigger than politics; this is about saving lives, and I must confess I'm getting a huge kick out of it.

24. The American people await action. They didn't send us here to bicker. They ask us to rise above the merely partisan. 'In crucial things, unity' - and this, my friends, is crucial.