Quotes

The Cry Wolf Quote Bank chronicles the false predictions and hyperbole by opponents of these laws and protections.  While the issues and specific policies change over time, the rhetoric and themes remained the same.  You can search the Quote Bank for what opponents said to prevent these laws from passing. Using the drop down menus on the right their statements by issue, by specific law, by who said it and by the core themes they evoke.   Elsewhere on the site, you can find articles, studies, and other material that debunks their claims. 

E.g., 2024-07-06
E.g., 2024-07-06

Although I know this will result in delays in obtaining results and will inconvenience patients, I simply cannot afford the additional costs necessary to meet all the proficiency testing and supervisory fees necessitated by this 'improvement' in health care.

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Dr. Cheryl Winchell, a Gaithersburg physician
11/16/1992 | Full Details

It's definitely driving doctors to find other jobs. Doctors feel they aren't being allowed to practice medicine because they are so overwhelmed with administrative aspects.

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Dr. Carol Wilson Garvey, president of the 1,400-member Montgomery County Medical Society.
11/16/1992 | Full Details

Some of those things are well founded. Some are just crazy….[you have to] dress up like Darth Vader whenever you see a patient.

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Peter B. Sherer, a hematologist in Montgomery County.
11/16/1992 | Full Details

Passing this bill puts us on a slippery slope to closing exemptions and mandating paid leave.

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Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX).
11/13/1992 | Full Details

On that family leave bill, I think that it would impose a burden upon businesses, including small businesses.... You would be telling businesses, through that act, that they are required to bring temporaries in, go through a training cycle, and lose the continuity that is so important to making a business function well. It has the effect of making it more expensive for them to do business. More expensive per employee, more expensive per job. The business can only defend itself by offering fewer jobs. That's the only way they can pay for it. It is a job killer….It makes it more expensive to hire people, so businesses say we won't hire people.

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Representative Ernest Istook (R-OK). Daily Oklahoman.
10/25/1992 | Full Details

Listen, these are the same people who will be standing in unemployment lines if the Clinton-Gore proposals are put into effect.

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John T. Truscott, Press Secretary to Republican Governor John Engler, The New York Times.
10/22/1992 | Full Details

[The Democratic Party] don't get that the ability of American businesses to create jobs is directly related to the burden government places on their backs. They don't get that mandating family and medical leave is just one more burden added…. Mandating that business pick up the tab for these benefits allows them to advance their agendas without spending Federal dollars.

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Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX)
09/30/1992 | Full Details

[Candidate Bill Clinton's health-care proposal] resembles long-standing plans by congressional Democrats to impose a version of socialized medicine in America.

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Editorial, The Orange County Register.
09/28/1992 | Full Details

[The FMLA] is an unprecedented, inflexible, Government-mandated employee benefit that will strangle both individual and employer flexibility in addressing workplace needs….Government mandates…do not contribute to economic recovery and growth. Resources spent to comply with Federal mandates cannot be spent to create jobs. These mandatory costs on business are not good for the economy as a whole. Employers must be free of the same kind of rigidities that have plagued the economies of many nations in Europe.

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Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
09/24/1992 | Full Details

OPA 90 -- virtually everyone affected, except the environmentalists, think it is as the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show.' Congress crafted it in an emotional bonfire, which was ignited by the massive spill at Valdez.

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Joe Farrell, president of the American Waterways Operators, United Press International.
09/15/1992 | Full Details

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