Well, you have the public not wanting any new spending, you have the Republicans not wanting any new taxes, you have the Democrats not wanting any new spending cuts, you have the markets not wanting any new borrowing, and you have the economists wanting all of the above. And that leads to paralysis.
I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that's one of the things that he's going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.
I was a Democrat before I was a Republican before I became an independent and I never changed my principles.
I like what I see when I look in the mirror. If I get sentimental, I look and say, "Uh. It's a bad day. They beat up on me," this, that, and the other thing. But ya know? We've spent one billion trying to convince people to not smoke. It's been phenomenally successful. We've probably saved millions of lives. There aren't many people that have done that. So, you know, when I get to heaven, I'm not sure I'm gonna stand for an interview. I'm going right in.
I think if you look at people, whether in business or government, who haven't had any moral compass, who've just changed to say whatever they thought the popular thing was, in the end they're losers.
I have two daughters that are the loves of my life and I want to leave them a better world, a better country, a better state and a better city.
I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I'm happy to be one - or proud to be one.
Most gun dealers follow the law and run honest businesses. But the statistics show that 1 percent of dealers sell more than half of all illegal guns. Why isn't the federal government going after them? Here's one reason: unlike mayors, members of Congress don't get a phone call in the middle of the night when a cop is shot and killed. They don't deliver the eulogies.
When I came into office, people said, 'Billionaire? How do they live? What do they eat? How do they sleep?' Today, they see me on the subway coming uptown. A couple of people say hi, some people smile and nod. Some people just sleep. It's not an issue.
You know, if you look back in the 1930s, the money went to infrastructure. The bridges, the municipal buildings, the roads, those were all built with stimulus money spent on infrastructure. This stimulus bill has fundamentally gone, started out with a $500 rebate check, remember. That went to buy flat-screen TVs made in China.
Last I looked - and I'm not a candidate - but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It's most states are winners take all.
Many of America's and New York's sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.
We will go forward... we will never go back.
We cannot continue. Our pension costs and health care costs for our employees are going to bankrupt this city.
Government should not tell you what to do unless there's a compelling public purpose.
What we shouldn't do is let people who want to come here make the decision themselves. America should be in control of its own borders.
I think fully, that an independent candidate can't win in this country. The Constitution is structured for basically a two-party government, a two-party race.
I think it's a sign that the establishment is going to have to change. For too long they never thought about the average person, because the average person is not organized.
We need to have more taxes, not less, and we need the taxes we have, certainly, to provide services - for defense and education and health care. We should not cut money here in order to cut taxes.
Partisanship may be King in Washington - but the rest of us don't have to pay tribute.
We have an expression in New York City government - "In God we trust, but for everyone else, bring data." It's so easy to pick up a sound byte and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that," without really thinking.
I make no secret of the fact that I was not a big Hillary Clinton supporter, but I thought in the two-way race between her and Donald Trump, that she should have been the president. But Trump promised a lot of things. And now he's six months in and hasn't passed a piece of legislation yet. Now, I personally have said we should help him. I didn't vote for him. I didn't think he was the right person. But once we have an election and he gets elected, then we have a responsibility as citizens to help him.
Fifty percent of the world's population lives in cities. In a couple of decades, 70 percent of the world's population will be living in cities. Cities are where the problem is. Cities are where the solution is, where creativity exists to address the challenges and where they have most impact. This is why, in 2005, the C40 was founded, an organization of cities that address climate change. It started with 18 cities; now it's 91. Cities simply are the key to saving the planet.
I never lie, so if somebody asked me a question, I told them.
We haven't had a world war in a long time. We do have mass movements of people out of Syria and North Africa. But, fundamentally, if you take Japan, you're complaining that the economy isn't booming, they'd like to have slightly higher inflation.
