Deficit Quotes - Page 2

• I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

  Warren Buffett

  Law, Gdp, Sitting

  "Warren Buffett's 5-Minute Plan to Fix the Deficit" by Alex Crippen, www.cnbc.com. July 7, 2011.

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• I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

  Ronald Reagan

  Funny, Money, Stupid

  Ronald Reagan's joke at the Gridiron Club annual dinner, March 24, 1984.

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• I believe that we should allow younger workers to contribute toward a personal account that they own, as long as it is coupled with deficit reduction measures that enhance the long-term condition of Social Security.

  Cliff Stearns

  Believe, Long, Social

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• I voted for the Deficit Reduction Package with significant heartburn over the student aid provisions.

  Bob Inglis

  Students, Aids, Significant

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• This Constitution does not reflect the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of ordinary people. It does nothing for jobs or economic growth and widens further still the democratic deficit.

  Nigel Farage

  Jobs, People, Growth

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• Reconciliation is a special budget procedure to change entitlement and tax laws. It cannot be filibustered and requires only a simple majority in the Senate to be passed. It is primarily intended for deficit and mandatory spending reduction

  Jeff Miller

  Simple, Law, Special

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• 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

  Responsibility, Government, Records

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• The world doesn't just revolve around you. There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Thinking, Empathy

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• 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.

  John W. Snow

  Medicare And Medicaid, Trying, President

  "Treasury Secretary Snow Optimistic on Economy". "PBS NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer, www.pbs.org. March 23, 2005.

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• We can have tax cuts, but when we have tax cuts and do not have a surplus, the amount of the tax cut goes straight to the bottom line, adds to the deficit, and the deficit adds to the national debt, and sooner or later, the debt has to be paid.

  John Spratt

  Cutting, Add, Debt

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• Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.

  Alan Greenspan

  Money, Gold, Wealth

  "Gold and Economic Freedom" by Alan Greenspan, www.constitution.org. 1966.

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• 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

  Government, Years, Class

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

  Hugh Sidey

  Problem, Easy, Stumps

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• Today I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office.

  Barack Obama

  Cutting, Office, Broken Promises

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• Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.

  Alan Greenspan

  Money, Rights, Gold

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.94, Penguin

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• Governments enjoying surpluses have a very strong temptation to splash money around, and while tax cuts are always appealing, cutting taxes at the top of a boom runs the real risk of creating a structural deficit when the boom subsides.

  Malcolm Turnbull

  Running, Strong, Real

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.

  Alan Greenspan

  Mean, Rights, Understanding

  "Alan Greenspan wants the US to go back on the gold standard" by Bill Bonner, www.businessinsider.com. July 10, 2016.

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• 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.

  Dick Cheney

  Fall, Taken, Reason

  "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert, www.nbcnews.com. September 14, 2003.

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• Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Past, Forget

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• Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

  Evan Bayh

  America, Challenges, Energy

  "Why I'm Leaving the Senate" by Evan Bayh, www.realclearpolitics.com. February 21, 2010.

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• Barack Obama's life was so much simpler in 2009. Back then, he had refined the cold act of blaming others for the bad economy into an art form. Deficits? Blame Bush's tax cuts. Spending? Blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No business investment? Blame Wall Street.

  John Sununu

  Art, Wall, War

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• 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.

  Rick Perry

  Cutting, January, Taxes

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• Deficits are like putting dynamite in the hands of children. They can get out of control very quickly.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Children, Hands, Dynamite

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• Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.

  Richard Lamm

  Funny, Christmas, Xmas

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• No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise.

  Barack Obama

  Party, Democracy, Compromise

  Second Democratic Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, delivered 6 September 2012, Charlotte, North Carolina

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