John R. Leopold Quotes

A budget in difficult times can and must serve the people for whom it is designed.

So I come before you with a budget that is honest in its discussion of our challenges, creative in its possible solutions, compassionate in its commitment to our most vulnerable, and balanced on the bottom line.

Let us act with our eyes open. We are going to have a deficit next fiscal year and the year after that.

I did not come into government to win an award as the great accountant in the sky and balance budgets.

What's really important to me is that we have fiscally responsible balanced budgets.

Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.

Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don't want to run out of gas on your trip, but you're not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn't be about the money.

Putting together a sustainable budget requires that we all work together, that we focus our scarce resources on key priorities, and that we strengthen our capacity to deliver the best product we can for the American people. And that takes money.

You don't lock into a ten-year family budget. You take it a year at a time - maybe even six months at a time. And then if the income really comes in the way you hope it does, then you can make some of those expenditures that you've been waiting to make. We think that same principle should apply to the national family we call America.

There is no question that we are in a period in which we are going to have to use those sources to fund about 35 million dollars a year that used to be paid for by the federal government.

The failure to work out sensible budgets makes it impossible for government agencies to make long-term plans, and instead leaves them scrambling to spend money in the short term.

A budget is a moral document.

Our system of keeping the federal government's books is a monument to the creativity of mankind ... We've cut government spending for 15 years in a row, and yet have spent more money in each of those years.

What should we do with this projected surplus? I have a simple four-word answer: Save Social Security first.

Economy in government does not mean spending little ... It means spending what you have and spending it well.

The only way to meet the situation [the financial crisis] is spend less money and to run the City of New York within the limits of our resources. Unless you do this, gentlemen, you will have a difficult problem confronting you by the end of this year and the taxpayers of 1922 and the years thereafter will have to pay the price of our present lack of prudence or our unwillingness to economize at the proper time.

Budget drives everything that we do.

Let’s make this the year where we are either going to get rid of the deficit or get rid of the idea that we are going to get rid of the deficit..

Budgeting is inherently complex.

Budgets are moral documents. When you put your budget on the table, we see what you really are.

The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.

If you don’t have the budget, you can’t get anything done. That’s why bureaucrats are always fighting about budgets.

Government spending is not wasteful. The question is, “Is it necessary?”

I was fortunate, I guess, to be part of some good fiscal discipline in the Bush administration. The budget I put forward was a balanced budget.

The budget doesn't have much control over the government. Then again, the government doesn't have much control over the budget.