Top 60 Deficits Quotes

One of the reasons the deficit got as big as it did, frankly, was because of the economic slowdown, the fall-off in deficits, the terrorist attacks. A significant chunk was taken out of the economy by what happened after the attacks of 9/11.

Deficits and debt threaten the growing American economy and our national security over the long term.

Well, I think what we need to remember is that budget deficits can impede economic activity.

One truism of federal budgeting is that growing deficits force difficult spending decisions, and when they do, programs to help the poor are usually first on the chopping block.

Instead of seeing these children for the blessings that they are, we are measuring them only by the standard of whether they will be future deficits or assets for our nation’s competitive needs.

The laws of normal economics dictate that lower taxes combined with increased spending will lead to bigger deficits.

For one thing, one of the wonderful things that we now have is instead of the huge budget surpluses that President Clinton left us with, we now have these huge deficits that we’re going to be facing into the future.

We developed during the 1990s a series of budget process rules that helped us bring to heel these deficits, diminishing every year and moving the budget so into surplus.

We are in a bit of a policy box and it’s going to require us being willing to give up one of the two, which is it’s okay to take on more deficits but lets put in some massive spending. Alternatively to say, ‘we’re going to go through structural unemployment for a while because we want to address deficits.’

I have spoken about deficits, and I think deficits are important because they address broad economic and financial stability. We need to talk about that.

Millennials are concerned with national debt and the deficits.

The U.S. has been living in a situation of excesses for too long. Consumers were out spending more than their income and the country was spending more than its income, running up large current-account deficits. Now we have to tighten our belts and save more.

Today, we have a trade regime which has led to the largest trade deficits this country has ever experienced.

America needs a new approach to boost the economy – one that does not doom future generations to being saddled with paying off today’s federal deficits.

There’s a stability and growth pact which was agreed for the eleven countries which tries to limit the size of budget deficits among the eleven countries.

Trade deficits are OK under certain circumstance. 1. An emerging nation imports capital goods necessary to enhance its productivity. 2. A developed nation, with a current account surplus, uses some of its investment income to finance the purchases of additional consumer goods from abroad.

To finance deficits, the government must sell bonds to investors, competing for capital that could otherwise be used to invest in stocks or corporate bonds. Government borrowings raise long-term interest rates, stifling economic growth.

Bilateral trade deficits are not evil; historically, better growth in the U.S. economy has led to larger trade deficits.

I think it’s absolutely clear that the fiscal path we are on is not sustainable, and for me, the best analogy is these deficits are like a cancer, and over time they will destroy the country from within.

I stated that I’m a libertarian Republican, which means I believe in a series of issues, such as smaller government, constraint on budget deficits, free markets, globalization, and a whole series of other things, including welfare reform.

Investment bankers do much of their business underwriting government bonds, in the United States and abroad. Therefore, they have a vested interest in promoting deficits and in forcing taxpayers to redeem government debt.

Our fiat currency is under increasing stress with our large and growing trade deficits. We have a federal deficit that is calculated in the trillions when we take into account the net present value of the future Social Security and Medicaid obligations we are creating today.

These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than ‘able-bodied’ folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.

Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.

Republicans profess to be against deficits, but they are experts at creating and exacerbating deficits.

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.

All we’re getting from the Democratic majority in Congress and from this White House is more bailouts, more spending, more planned stimulus, more deficits and debt, and the American people have had it.

Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world’s last ‘New Frontier:’ a kind of ‘it-continent.’

Deficits are anathema to most Republicans. And Democrats widely believe that government spending should fall as the economy recovers.

Slow growth and inflation have a tendency to accompany large deficits and increasing debt as a percentage of GDP.

I served at a time when we had a strong economy, when we had deficits that we would die for today. I was able to propose a balanced budget, not over ten years, but over five years. I’m proud of that record.

If trade deficits are good, why is China so pleased that they run a huge trade surplus? It’s perfectly obvious that if China hadn’t been such a huge net-exporter, it never would have grown at the rate that it did.

Growth is what solves most of the big economic and social problems: poverty, government deficits, quality of life, rising healthcare and retirement costs.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

Yes, it is long past time we get serious about tackling the nation’s ever-growing deficits. But the average American family drawn into serious debt cannot just threaten to stiff its creditors. It must cut its spending in the future, but also take responsibility for the debt incurred in the past.

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own deficits. This will create greater pressure for higher state and local taxes.

Deficits do not in themselves produce inflation, nor does a balanced budget assure a stable price level.

The modern GOP has perfected this cyclical deficit outrage ritual. Republicans run up the tab when they control the White House, then scream about deficits when Democrats win – insisting that ‘serious reform’ means cutting only Democratic budget priorities.

Our priority must be to build a path towards balancing the budget, and we cannot tolerate growing deficits.

We’re focused on doing the things that make the economy perform well, and as you do that, reduce deficits, for one, very important; secondly, keep growth rates high, very important.

Traditionally, the way deficits have been cut is you hold expenditures more or less constant in real dollars and then let growth come in to fill it up.

It is day after day in this institution, borrow money, run up the debt, run up the deficits and then with a straight face say, we are going to repeal a tax that affects 1 percent of the American people, just 1 percent of the American people.

Chronic deficits drastically reduce government’s ability to make those infrastructure investments that business needs to grow and create jobs.

There are several silver linings on the horizon. The current account deficits in Spain and Portugal are declining because they have become more competitive and they’re exporting more.

President Obama’s policies have been categorical failures for our country. Unemployment is over nine percent, our deficits are growing, and small businesses are being burdened with regulations.

When done right – or wrong, depending on how you look at it – deficits remove liberal options from the table. Suddenly there’s no money for building bridges or inspecting meat. Not surprisingly, running up a deficit is a strategy favored by the wrecking crew for its liberal-killing properties.

In a time of serious budget deficits, immense war costs and a sluggish economy, we cannot afford to grant such outlandish subsidies to some of our Nation’s largest corporations.

Understanding that yes, we are committing more resources than we thought we might be in protecting our homeland and prosecuting a war and so it’s understandable that we would be going through a period of deficits.

While deficits are often inflationary and always pernicious, curing them by raising taxes is equivalent to curing an illness by shooting the patient.

If we weren’t running deficits, if we weren’t spending more than we were taking in, there would be no reason whatsoever to increase the debt ceiling.

The problems seem so easy out there on the stump. Deficits shrink with a rhetorical flourish.