Government Deficit Quotes

#1. The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect.

Sam Ewing

#2. The folks celebrating Jim Bunning are seeing him as an anti-government, anti-spending activist. But to embrace Jim Bunning is to embrace a strange record, if you really are a libertarian, if you really are a deficit hawk, if you really care about spending and responsibility.

Rachel Maddow

#3. Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with.

Milton Friedman

#4. The challenge for any government is how do you do two things at the same time. How do you put money forward for things like the payroll tax holiday, for things like getting a jump-start on infrastructure, for building schools, and make the decisions for long-term deficit reduction.

Jacob Lew

#5. Unlike the federal government, most states don't have the option of running a deficit.

Marcia Angell

#6. Avoid the known paths or else be ready to end up in the known places!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#7. [T]he only way to shrink the trade deficit is for the government to prohibit us from buying whatever we want.

John Stossel

#8. Economically, long-term joblessness means fewer dollars for consumption. For deficit control, it means fewer taxpayers contributing to government revenues and tens of billions more spent on unemployment insurance.

Nina Easton

#9. Miseria fortes viros, Ronan," Adam said.
When he said "Ronan," it meant: Ronan.

Maggie Stiefvater

#10. But public works, economic protectionism, cheap money, 'deficit-financed government spending,' and 'the animal spirits of the spendthrift' in the service of boosting 'consumption demand' ... Doesn't Keynesianism simply appeal to the worst in human nature?

Ilana Mercer

#11. I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.

John Bercow

#12. With attention deficit democracy, I am trying to wake up people to how the combination of mass ignorance, fear mongering by the government, and lying politicians is putting our entire system of government to a death spiral.

James Bovard

#13. Suppose death had a heart to love and to release you, to whom would he turn this passion, would you chose a person from the crowd there. A person to suffer as you suffer.

Anne Rice

#14. however much such loans may temporarily relieve the situation, the Government is still indebted for the amount of the surplus thus accrued, which it must ultimately pay, while its ability to pay is not strengthened, but weakened by a continued deficit.

George Washington

#15. For the last 4 years, our Federal Government has produced the four biggest deficits in history, and the estimated 2006 deficit of $423 billion is projected to be the largest of all.

Melissa Bean

#16. When the U.K. or U.S. government issues bonds to fund a deficit, the buyers are not solely in the U.K. or the U.S. - they're in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Investment banks provide direct access to these buyers.

Bob Diamond

#17. It was only after the Grimms published two editions primarily for adults that they changed their attitude and decided to produce a shorter edition for middle-class families. This led to Wilhelm's editing and censoring many of the tales.

Jack Zipes

#18. The president has been a true friend of the ag industry, because he continues to invest large amounts of money at a time when savings is really the goal of the federal government to deal with the deficit.

Mike Johanns

#19. The only thing growing faster than the federal government's deficit is Chris Matthews' man-crush on Barack Obama.

Tim Pawlenty

#20. I could see that Isabel listened to him with growing exasperation. Larry had no notion that he was driving a dagger in her heart and with his every detached word twisting it in the wound. But when she spoke it was with a faint smile on her lips.

W. Somerset Maugham

#21. doubtless not singular that the ladies from Merrimac Avenue

Henry James

#22. To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget. You don't take more from the private sector and grow government with it. And that's exactly what Obama has in mind with this expiration of Bush tax cuts proposal of his.

Sarah Palin

#23. The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit. The deficit is the symptom of the disease.

Grover Norquist

#24. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Thomas Jefferson

#25. We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.

Ronald Reagan

#26. Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Ben Stein

#27. I lowered taxes in New York. I reduced the size of government in New York. I took a $2.4 billion deficit and turned it into a $3.2 billion surplus. And I reduced taxes over 23 times or 23 times.

Rudy Giuliani

#28. Democrats have always wanted to grow government with revenues from our society's producers. They aren't sincere about reducing the deficit, because they will not abandon their addiction to spending other people's money.

David Limbaugh

#29. The only way government bureaucrats know of keeping prosperity going is to inflate some more - to increase the deficit or to pump more money into the system.

Henry Hazlitt

#30. At times of recession, running a budget deficit is highly desirable. Once the economy begins to recover, you have to balance the budget. But it will also need additional revenues. Should the government not receive them, we will all get punished with higher interest rates.

George Soros

#31. If you look at the studies coming out of the Congressional Budget Office, the number one thing that's going to blow a hole in the deficit as we go forward 20, 30 years is government spending on healthcare.

Christina Romer

#32. Trying to cut the deficit too far, too fast isn't working. The government must adopt a steadier, more balanced plan to get our deficit down and take immediate action now to support the economy and create jobs here in Britain.

Ed Balls

#33. I've always thought that I'm kind of a cross between a young Bill Clinton and Lyle Lovett. And I just want to say I'm proud of that. Those are two good looking guys.

James Badge Dale

#34. It's clear to me that one can't be Jewish without Israel. Religious or non-religious, Zionist or non-Zionist, Ashkenazi or Sephardic - all these will not exist without Israel.

Elie Wiesel

#35. In almost every enterprise, government has provided business with opportunities for private gain at public expense. Government nurtures private capital accumulation through a process of subsidies, supports, and deficit spending and an increasingly inequitable tax system.

Michael Parenti

#36. Socialism is the expression of the principle of violence crying from the workers' soul, just as Imperialism is the principle of violence speaking from the soul of the official and the soldier.

Ludwig Von Mises

#37. Yes, deficits are a problem. I've been saying so for more than a quarter of a century now. But the problem is not the size of the deficit, it's the size of government's claim on our economy.

Ronald Reagan

#38. I don't want to remember 2005 as a year that the government heaped unnecessary burdens upon American families. Stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich, while increasing the deficit, is hardly responsible.

Marty Meehan

#39. When vitality runs high, death takes men by surprise. But if they close their eyes to this possibility, what they gain in peace they lose in sensibility and significance.

Lewis Mumford