* “In the event of a Republican victory, Ryan would be as dominant a figure on economic policy as Dick Cheney was on foreign policy under George W. Bush.”–Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief, the Slate Group.
* “The secretive, ambiguous Romney was desperate for ideological clarity, so he outsourced his political identity to Ryan, a numbers guy whose numbers don’t add up.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”–Jesuit letter to Paul Ryan, Catholic vice presidential nominee.
* “We have chosen a tax system that raises relatively little revenue and inflicts maximum economic harm. Every other industrial country has a national consumption tax, which can be used to raise a lot of money without distorting people’s economic incentives. The United States, by contrast, relies mostly on taxes on labor and capital that dampen people’s drive to work and invest, putting a drag on economic growth.”–Eduardo Porter, New York Times.
* “When George Herbert Walker Bush ran for president, he promised the American people he wouldn’t raise their taxes. He lied to them. He broke his commitment to them and they threw him out of office four years later.”–Grover Norquist.
* “The circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It’s–who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?”–Former President George H.W. Bush.
* “When you talk about eliminating deductions and tax credits for the few, at the expense of the many, I think over time the Republican party’s position is going to shift. It needs to, quite frankly, because we are $16 trillion in debt.”–Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.
* “What’s needed is a restoration of Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era legislation that separated commercial and investment banking.”–David A. Stockman, former director of President Ronald Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget.
* “The next media jackpot.”–Forbes magazine’s characterization of the Hispanic television market.
* “Our very best teachers ought to be treated much, much better than they are today. But in order to get there, we need to be able to say out loud that some teachers are better than others.”–Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Educational Reform.
* “The state has failed to satisfy its burden of proving that those changes will not have a retrogressive effect on minority voters.”–From written statement of three-judge tribunal in U.S. District Court in Washington disallowing Florida’s decision to reduce the days of early voting in Hillsborough and four other counties.
* “We’re going to play well on (GOP Convention) game day.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “The streetcar’s a good investment. That’s the way people should look at it.”–Ybor City Chamber of Commerce President Tom Keating.
* “We don’t unfetter for anybody.”–Rays’ manager Joe Maddon underscoring that although the Rays were cooperating with behind-the-scenes TV show Caught Looking, the cameras and microphones would not have unfettered access.