Quotes About Spending

In a clean break from the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. That is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.

The American people elected us here to cut spending so we can create an environment for jobs in America. The House has acted. We have demonstrated that we want to see spending, discretionary spending, brought down to levels of 2008. We've seen no counteraction. We have seen no position that has been expressed by the other side at all.

Defense spending as a share of the economy dropped significantly during the early 1990s, and that was one of the things, along with other policy changes, that put us back on the path to a balanced budget.

I think about how I'm spending my money, and I like to spend on my family.

I think what they're looking for is for us to keep our promises and to do the simple things, like cutting spending and being responsible.

In the budget, the president will call for a five-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for national security. This will reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and bring this category of spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.

The problem is that the economy isn't growing fast enough to accommodate the level of spending produced through the democratic process.

If you could bring to me a majority of people to say that we're going to have $10 of spending cuts for $1 of revenue enhancement, put me in, coach.

Raising the debt limit on some levels is a ministerial act. It doesn't involve any new spending.

Federal spending is atrocious.

Families out there know that if they get in trouble and they've spent up a bunch of money and they've borrowed and they are up to hock to their necks, the thing they've got to do is start paying off what they owe and cut back their spending.

I think you're going to see a number of Democrats that do want to see us grapple with spending.

The Republican argument that raising the debt ceiling encourages additional future spending is logically irresponsible. The debt ceiling has to be raised to authorize spending already approved by Congress. Despite that fallacy, the GOP has been able to score political points with its argument.

Under the administration of George W. Bush, you will recall, federal spending grew pretty significantly. At the same time, the number of people directly employed by the federal government shrank. One of the factors that explained the difference was contracting.

To protect people's lives and keep our children safe, we must implement public-works spending and do so proudly. If possible, I'd like to see the Bank of Japan purchase all of the construction bonds that we need to issue to cover the cost. That would also forcefully circulate money in the market. That would be positive for the economy, too.

Republicans know that government spending creates jobs. They just want that spending to be funneled to their projects and districts... and they certainly don't want to say it out loud.

The dome of the U.S. Capitol has fallen into severe disrepair... As the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which oversees matters of the Capitol's physical plant, I have serious concerns about the consequences of omitting this funding from the stopgap spending measure.

The American system of political spending is so unregulated that it might make Adam Smith rethink free markets.

If you ask the question of Americans, should we pay our bills? One hundred percent would say yes. There's a significant misunderstanding on the debt ceiling. People think it's authorizing new spending. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize new spending; it allows us to pay obligations already incurred.

We can't reform mandatory spending in this area until we first deal with ours. I tell my colleagues, 'Let's get the moral high ground and demonstrate that we want to make changes to our pension, and then we can deal with the big problems.'

Sequestration was not designed to be anyone's ideal method for getting our hands around government spending, and it certainly isn't mine.

If you look at what is happening in Republican conventions across the country, they are energized. And the message is really the same - that is, big government is a problem, spending is a problem.

You have to take time and make time for each other. My current single 'Time Is Love' gives a lot of advice in that area, just spending quantity time with the one you love and the one you care about because that's when you really develop a relationship.

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.