When the country’s indebtedness is so colossal and where the budget deficit is so huge, there is a moral obligation on people to pay their fair and reasonable dues.
Many textbooks fail to present students with both sides of an issue. Students are being pushed toward an education that demonizes free enterprise while advocating top-down government, deficit spending and class warfare.
In my view, Obamacare is the most existential threat to our economy than anything we’ve ever had since the Great Depression, so I think a little bit of additional deficit is nothing compared to delaying if not repealing Obamacare.
Only one thing can save this country, and that’s to get a handle on this deficit and debt issue.
If you lose control of your debt and deficit, you get massive cuts in things such as health and education. You get appalling insecurity, jobs lost, firms going overseas.
I’ve added up all the hours of zzz’s I’ve missed in my lifetime, and it turns out I’m running on a rather substantial deficit.
Tax rates for the wealthy should revert to Clinton-era levels, both because it is necessary for long-term deficit reduction and because fairness dictates it. Moreover, there is no proof that higher marginal rates dissuade investment, all the rhetoric from the Right notwithstanding.
We are worried about the size of the deficit, which is why the president is pleased that the House and Senate have followed his lead in cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.
In addition to a soaring stock market, 6.6 million jobs have been created since tax relief measures went into effect in 2003. Our deficit situation has also improved as tax revenues have increased at double-digit rates over the past two years.
In fact, I think – our view of this is that while the agreement, the compromise did not achieve the kind of super-sized deficit reduction that we sought, it did end the uncertainty around the perception, the possibility that the United States might default on its obligations for its first time. That was a good thing.
I am a deficit hawk.
The President forgot to mention the Moon, Mars, and the federal deficit – all of which are sky-high.
We had a $10 billion budget deficit when we got here in January of 2003. We cut that budget deficit; we did not raise taxes; we came back in ’05, and we had an $8 billion surplus. That’s how fast it can happen.
Look, I don’t dispute that the deficit has increased.
Now fiscal responsibility is generally a good thing, and so a centrism mindlessly focused on tweaking legislation away from deficit spending has its uses.
In order to reduce the deficit, there has to be revenue in addition to cuts.
At his best, Obama promised to work with Republicans to reduce the deficit in a way that honors both individualism and community.
Every dollar a foreigner spends over here directly subtracts a dollar from the trade deficit.
When Republicans used reconciliation in 2001 for the Bush tax cuts, they used it to increase the deficit. The whole purpose of reconciliation is for deficit reduction!
We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy. The left wants to focus on the deficit so they can take us away from the focus on spending as a percentage of the economy.
When I became mayor of New York City, I had a $2.4 billion deficit. And everybody wanted me to raise taxes. I said, ‘If I raise taxes, I’ll drive people out of New York City, and then I’ll be raising taxes again.’ So what I did was I cut expenses by 15 percent.
I have said repeatedly I do want to take longer to eliminate the deficit than the other parties. Because I want to see us have the ability to invest more in our economy, in our public services, and in lifting people out of poverty.
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.
Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.
How does one leave Social Security and Medicare untouched, grow defense by more than $50 billion, slash taxes, launch a $1 trillion infrastructure program – and not explode the deficit and national debt?
Well, the U.S. is running a current account deficit; we are creating lots of investment opportunities in the United States that exceed our own domestic savings rates, so the issue here is to encourage higher savings rates in the United States.
Obama and the Democrats’ preposterous argument is that we are just one more big tax increase away from solving our economic problems. The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the primary driver of the short-term deficit is not tax cuts but the lack of any meaningful economic growth over the last half decade.
In New Mexico, I inherited the largest structural deficit in state history, and our legislature is controlled by Democrats. We don’t always agree, but we came together in a bipartisan manner and turned that deficit into a surplus. And we did it without raising taxes.
I think it’s very important not to confuse the importance of dealing with Social Security in the long term with these short-term deficit reduction challenges. They’re different issues.
I think where I differ a little bit, we absolutely have to think about the deficit looking down the road. And certainly that’s something the president has said that we need to, as the economy recovers, have a plan in place for getting it down.
In 2001, when the economy was strong, the country was able to absorb substantial deficit spending in the wake of September 11 without constricting the Federal Reserve’s flexibility to ease interest rates.
Fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish as have those in Greece, we will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
We will primarily focus on affordable housing, water supply and transport infrastructure, as these are critical for Mumbai. Infrastructure deficit is an issue in all urban areas.
As the U.S. did during the Space Race, we must invest in our businesses and intellect to ensure America leads the clean energy economy of the future. As we all know, the best way to reduce our deficit and bring down our debt is by putting Americans back to work.
My hope is that we’re going to be more strategic and focused as we look for a way to address the long-term deficit and debt issues that are affecting this nation.
The best time to make deficit reduction a priority is when the inflation rate and the bond market give you some indication that you are headed for a dangerous inflationary spiral.
Our phones have created what I like to call SADD – Social Attention Deficit Disorder.
We have a serious structural deficit problem. And it needs to be addressed. The president is trying to address it through reforms of Social Security, but the problem is there with other entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Unless the trade deficit shrinks, the combination of the trade deficit and the interest and dividend payments to foreigners will grow ever more rapidly.
Honest talk about the deficit is risky. Voters are more enthusiastic about the abstract notion of deficit reduction than about the painful details of accomplishing it.
Democrats were quick to point out that President Bush’s budget creates a 1 trillion dollar deficit. The White House quickly responded with ‘Hey, look over there, it’s Saddam Hussein.’
We wanted to be certain they didn’t have a bigger deficit, and Kennedy agreed with me.
Well obviously the economy is critical to everything we do and we need to get the economy back in shape, the deficit down, the debt paid off, so that the economy can grow again and grow properly.
We have to honor our commitments to today’s beneficiaries, but we can’t solve the growing deficit and debt problems unless we are smart, courageous, and sensible in planning for future.
When President Bush left office, the deficit was approximately $500 billion. It is now approximately now $1.5 trillion. In other words, President Obama has essentially tripled the deficit.
I do worry that as we try to fix this long-term debt and deficit situation that we don’t destroy the market incentives for biomedical research. What I fear is the government using its considerable clout to say, ‘Here’s the price we’re setting for your medicines.’
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.
I think growing an economy is a good way to help with a deficit, but ultimately, it’s about fiscal discipline and responsible spending – and smart decisions.
Neoconservative Republican President George W. Bush took office determined to aggressively export American democratic values through conflict. The Iraq war, a misdirected response to 9/11, tacked trillions of dollars on to the deficit while further destabilising the Middle East.
Trump will fail even in his proclaimed goal of reducing the trade deficit, which is determined by the disparity between domestic savings and investment.
