Fiscal Quotes

#1. We are at crisis point. I think anybody that sees this nation as being on stable economic or fiscal ground is fooling themselves.

Joe Miller

#2. Arizona is in the midst of a fiscal crisis. We've cut school funding. And they pass a bill questioning Obama's citizenship? For real?

Kyrsten Sinema

#3. Berlin has traditionally backed a rules-based eurozone in which every member state is responsible for its own finances, including bank bailouts, with political union limited to a fiscal overlord's possessing veto power over national budgets that violate the rules.

Yanis Varoufakis

#4. New Rule: Whenever you think the Tea Party can't get any dumber, they get dumber. Now they're in love with Donald Trump. Because nothing says "We're serious about fiscal responsibility" quite like a billionaire whose corporations have filed for bankruptcy three times.

Bill Maher

#5. My friend Paul Ryan talks about fiscal responsibility, but voted to put two wars on a credit card.

Steny Hoyer

#6. Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#7. The big winners under the American fiscal system are the rich, who pay some of the lowest taxes anywhere in the world; the old, who are the main beneficiaries of the American social service state; farmers, rural people. These are Republican constituencies.

David Frum

#8. This election presents a stark choice - we can continue down the road of the Obama Democrats, more and more spending, debt and government control of the economy, or we can return to the founding principles of our nation - free markets, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.

Ted Cruz

#9. I will work to restore fiscal responsibility to our country's budget and to provide for a more robust economy.

Ed Pastor

#10. Folks trying to plan their personal fiscal '15 are at a loss. They can't do a budget because they don't know what their health insurance costs will be.

Hugh Hewitt

#11. Every day things get better because politicians are addressing the fiscal challenges more aggressively.

Meredith Whitney

#12. The U.K. and almost all of Europe have erred in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity in the short term, is the way to produce real growth. It is not. You've got to spend money.

Bill Gross

#13. I am personally convinced - and I think the Greek people share this belief in a fundamental way - that we can achieve fiscal consolidation more effectively and we can restore competitiveness in a more fundamental and permanent way within the euro area than outside.

Lucas Papademos

#14. And it's one reason why I don't go to a lot of movies - they're more and more dominated by corporate values and fiscal concerns as opposed to cinematic concerns.

Jeffrey Wright

#15. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, our nation has been put under considerable fiscal pressure.

Paul Gillmor

#16. We need a mobilized and active civil society using its purchasing power to demand sustainable products and practices. It is also essential that governments commit to the future, creating fiscal and regulatory conditions for sustainable policies to thrive.

Guilherme Leal

#17. Europe unified its monetary policy through the euro before it unified politically, therefore sustaining member countries' abilities to pursue the kind of independent fiscal policies that can strain a joint currency.

Amity Shlaes

#18. A Tory government with a decent mandate seems the only hope of tackling the fiscal catastrophe responsibly.

Max Hastings

#19. I believe Nebraskans appreciate the fiscal discipline I've brought to state government, balancing the budget without raising taxes and prioritizing education funding.

Dave Heineman

#20. First, the year 2004, the year past, the Comptroller General of the United States, David A. Walker, said that arguably it was the worst year in American fiscal history, clearly setting our Nation on an unsustainable path.

Jim Cooper

#21. In coming to the Congress as a new Member and becoming a fellow Blue Dog, we have had an opportunity to share and really spend a great deal of time in examining the challenges that our Nation finds itself in in getting its fiscal house in order.

Jim Costa

#22. I know the exploding cost of health care is at the root of our long-term fiscal challenges.

Fred Upton

#23. Washington's answer to a self-inflicted financial crisis reminded Americans why they so deeply distrust the political class. The 'fiscal cliff' process was secretive and sloppy, and the nation's so-called leadership lacked the political courage to address our root problems: joblessness and debt.

Ron Fournier

#24. At the heart of every major political upheaval lies a fiscal revolution.

Thomas Piketty

#25. I stand for limited government, fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, personal responsibility, so the Republican Party will support me.

Rick Scott

#26. Corruption is an inevitable by-product of the present structure of Nigeria's federalism. Once we restructure the polity into a true fiscal federalism, everything else will simply fall into place. Until then, corruption remains as official as it is legal in Nigeria.

Tony Osborg

#27. It's the old Washington fiscal game of Jenga. You try to build as much debt as you can take, as much tax as you can take, until you topple the entire economy.

Kevin McCarthy

#28. I'm a fiscal hawk. I vote against all taxes, but I do believe the environment, and climate change, is a bigger issue than fiscal deficits are as a risk to the nation.

Vinod Khosla

#29. The great thing about fiscal policy is that it has a direct impact and doesn't require you to bind the hands of future policymakers.

Paul Krugman

#30. In 50 years, no one will care about the fiscal cliff or the Euro crisis. They'll just ask, "So the Arctic melted, and then what did you do?"

Bill McKibben

#31. I represent an emerging group of leaders within the Jewish community who are conservatives; not just fiscal conservatives, but social conservatives as well.

Adam Hasner

#32. All schoolchildren are hostages to red tape and fiscal insufficiency.

Rosellen Brown

#33. I'm still a fiscal conservative, and I'm inclined to pay down debt.

Jim Flaherty

#34. President Obama's reelection started the countdown for lawmakers to address the fiscal cliff and the statutory debt limit. Unless the President and House Republicans can agree on changes to current law, the U.S. economy will be in recession by spring.

Mark Zandi

#35. The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform.

Ari Fleischer

#36. Our first priority has to be getting our fiscal house in order - and creating an atmosphere for the private sector in job creation.

Bill Huizenga

#37. What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our Commander-in-Chief, what we heard today was a political broadside from our Campaigner-in-Chief.

Paul Ryan

#38. Fiscal discipline begins by leveling with people, by being honest, by paying for all of your proposals.

Jason Furman

#39. I think for business reasons, fiscal reasons, I think these cable networks can take greater risks and I think with a risk comes better programming. And I think USA has got an amazing identity to it now that is clearly defined with its 'Characters welcome' tag.

Tim DeKay

#40. You have to separate what needs to be done to avoid the fiscal cliff and what needs to be done longer range. It's a mistake to essentially collapse those two - they're not the same. I don't think you can achieve everything at once.

Sander Levin

#41. Reagonomics - a blend of monetarism and fiscal Keynesianism swathed in classical liberal and supply-side rhetoric - is in no way going to solve the problem of inflationary depression or of the business cycle.

Murray Rothbard

#42. As we move forward to debate our economic and fiscal challenges in the weeks and months ahead, one thing is clear: Our economic agenda, choices and decisions, will be viewed through the perspective and the eyes of our nation's women and their needs and those of their families.

Nancy Pelosi

#43. There is not a country on earth that could get its fiscal house in order by shrinking opportunity and depressing growth.

Martin O'Malley

#44. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schaeuble, her finance minister, are right to oppose fiscal and bank unions without political union.

Edmund Phelps

#45. If you were starting from scratch to invent an instrument that could impose fiscal discipline, the last one on earth you would come up with is the United States government.

Meg Greenfield

#46. I represent what I think is a traditional Republican ... a limited government, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense, individual freedom and liberty.

Olympia Snowe

#47. You know, we have a fiscal train wreck before us. And unless we act, and act deliberately, we're not going to enable our kids to have what we have. It's plain and simple as that.

Eric Cantor

#48. I have made mistakes - mighty big ones at that. Not the kind that would cause a national fiscal deficit a-la Manmohan Singh or ruin some unassuming person's life, but the kind that makes you go into face palm mode and want to die every time you are reminded of them.

Shuchi Singh Kalra

#49. To me, there is no greater threat than our debt. I'm the only fiscal conservative on the stage because I'm willing to hold the line on all spending.

Rand Paul

#50. I think that retiring the baby boomers is going to be one of the great challenges in America, that you cannot make fiscal sense out of the future of our children without taking on entitlements.

Richard Lamm

#51. Not having insurance not only destroys your life, it destroys your fiscal life. It breaks up marriages. You cannot functions anywhere unless you have good health.

Charles B. Rangel

#52. The Republican Party is either going to return to the party of fiscal responsibility and consistent conservative principles as it was under Ronald Reagan, or it will continue down the path of 'sporadic moderation.'

Todd Tiahrt

#53. Political union means transferring the prerogatives of national legislatures to the European parliament, which would then decide how to structure Europe's fiscal, banking, and monetary union.

Barry Eichengreen

#54. We need balanced programs, balanced priorities on the fiscal side

Jason Furman

#55. The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare - all this and more is written in its fiscal history, stripped of all phrases. He who knows how to listen to its message here discerns the thunder of world history more clearly than anywhere else.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

#56. As the President reviewed the state of the union and unveiled his second-term agenda, he fell short of adequately explaining how he intends to set America back on the course of fiscal responsibility and secure the fiscal health of the nation.

Ron Kind

#57. The 'fiscal cliff' is a ruse, an invention by the right and the rich, to try and keep their huge tax breaks.

Michael Moore

#58. There is an old saying, "How did you go bankrupt?" And the answer is, "Gradually, and then suddenly." The impending fiscal crisis in the United States will make its appearance in the same way.

Seth Klarman

#59. Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes.

Mark Zandi

#60. Now, 'the fiscal cliff' is a name that the media came up with, but some of us have been saying for years, 'You have got to stop the out of control federal spending, or you will end up at this point.' We're there.

Marsha Blackburn

#61. Republicans should simply focus on first principles and give the American people what they want - an honest party dedicated to common sense, fiscal responsibility and limited government. If we govern to save the country, we'll do well as a party.

Tom Coburn

#62. I am a fiscal conservative.

Ed Rendell

#63. I developed the concept of the Happy Warrior as a rallying cry for those of us who want to restore America to its great foundational principles: individual freedom, personal responsibility, fiscal restraint, and economic liberty.

Monica Crowley

#64. Restoring responsibility and accountability is essential to the economic and fiscal health of our nation.

Carl Levin

#65. Having your fiscal house in order and having a more manageable macro-economic future is going to be very useful in creating growth.

Fareed Zakaria

#66. Fiscal policy, monetary policy, they need to work together to try and raise the level of growth.

Joe Hockey

#67. I generally leave the details of fiscal programs to the Administration and Congress. That's really their area of authority and responsibility, and I don't think it's appropriate for me to second guess.

Ben Bernanke

#68. Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well.

Robert Mundell

#69. The President must stop gambling with taxpayers' money and get the country back on the path of fiscal sanity.

Tom Harkin

#70. If you're running for president, you've got to do a lot of things to line up a candidacy. I've not done any of those things. It's not my plan. My plan is to be a good chairman of the House Budget Committee and fight for the fiscal sanity of this nation.

Paul Ryan

#71. Nigeria, with the oil sector, had the reputation of being corrupt and not managing its own public finances well. So what did we try to do? We introduced a fiscal rule that de-linked our budget from the oil price.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

#72. Popular as Keynesian fiscal policy may be, many economists are skeptical that it works. They argue that fine-tuning the economy is a virtually impossible task, and that fiscal-stimulus programs are usually too small, and arrive too late, to make a difference.

James Surowiecki

#73. So much of our mythology around money centers on the illusion that if we had 'more,' we would be more comfortable and more able to access our creativity. But creativity and prosperity are spiritual matters, not fiscal ones.

Julia Cameron

#74. The most pressing and significant problems in the global economy are unsustainable structural issues with regard to the E.U. - fiscal deficits and the structure of the E.U. itself.

Henry Paulson

#75. Greece has given Europe the opportunity to fix a defect in the euro zone, that is the fact that we did not have a fiscal union. Now steps have been taken to begin that process. And there is more solidarity from nation to nation, and that is a good thing. That has been Greece's gift to Europe.

George Papandreou

#76. The American people expect more from Congress. They expect fiscal responsibility and common sense. They expect us to return to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that we had enacted in the past that helped us establish a surplus, however briefly.

Melissa Bean

#77. Especially today, given the tight fiscal situation that many States and localities face, the use of transportation facilities that pay for themselves without additional Federal funding is essential.

Michael Burgess

#78. The failure of the White House and Congress to seriously address the nation's fiscal situation is certain to broaden the belief among many voters that the U.S. political system is broken.

Ron Fournier

#79. Many emerging countries are facing the same issue of overheating and inflation because they have been vigorously expanding fiscal and monetary policy to counter the 2008 shock.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati

#80. Fiscal responsibility and government reform are going to be good themes for governing, well at any time, but particularly coming out of a recovery.

Bob McDonnell

#81. Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

P. J. O'Rourke

#82. Veterans are driven by the same frustrations that the public has with what is happening in Washington ... the fiscal irresponsibility and the financial crisis that our country is facing.

Pete Hegseth

#83. I would like to see Greece as a case study, an opportunity for Europe to strengthen its coordination of fiscal policy.

George Papandreou

#84. Every Democrat on Capitol Hill professes to be a fiscal hawk.

Bob Beauprez

#85. If we're going to win this battle over fiscal responsibility, we need more of the people who vote right and fewer of those whose seniority is their only selling point.

Jason Chaffetz

#86. Spending and tax cut decisions must be both fiscally responsible and fair to our working families. I believe that fiscal responsibility is the way to create prosperity for America and secure the retirement of America's seniors.

Blanche Lincoln

#87. Alas, my "fiddle playing" will not get me to Carnegie Hall - or even to a high school recital. Berkshire, on your behalf and mine, will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its 2003 income, a sum equaling 2½% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal 2003.

Warren Buffett

#88. Outrageous fiscal mendacity is neither historically normal nor bipartisan. It's a modern Republican thing.

Paul Krugman

#89. I'll never run for office. But I intend, either on the fiscal commission or on issues like immigration, to hopefully have my voice be heard.

Andy Stern

#90. There is a Party of fiscal responsibility ... economic responsibility ... social responsibility ... civic responsibility ... personal responsibility ... and moral responsibility. That party is the Democratic Party.

Howard Dean

#91. We need to resist the temptation to create more entitlements and more entitlements, which is one of the reasons we are heading recklessly toward fiscal crisis.

Jeff Sessions

#92. Under current law, on January 1st, 2013, there is going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.

Ben Bernanke

#93. In the past, proactive fiscal polices almost always meant just more investment and an increase in the fiscal deficit.

Li Keqiang

#94. Donors, like voters, increasingly expect candidates to exercise fiscal discipline.

Mark McKinnon

#95. When you talk about entitlement programs, it's not just about - it's not about cutting those programs. It is about saving those programs. Those programs are on a path of fiscal unsustainability.

Marco Rubio

#96. While their fiscal views aren't mine, the moderates are the last reasonable voice in the current Republican Party.

Eliot Spitzer

#97. Much fiscal policy is implemented, not through spending increases, but through tax credits and other so-called tax expenditures. The markets should respond to them as they do spending cuts, with little contraction in economic activity.

Alan Greenspan

#98. The first half of fiscal 2006 has been exceptional for Cochlear. Importantly, Cochlear capitalized on a number of opportunities in this half with worldwide market share estimated to be in excess of 70%.

Chris Roberts

#99. The American people deserve a blueprint for policymaking that is built upon the Constitution of the United States and the principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability, and a strong national defense.

Jason Chaffetz

#100. "Moderate" Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger like to boast that they're fiscal conservatives and social liberals. But the social liberalism always ends up burying the fiscal conservatism.

Mark Steyn