Rick Perry Quotes

My job is to rectify the public finances and hand the country back to the people so they can really have a future, and that is what I will do.

The call for debt cancellation is welcome, but debt does not just go away.

We cannot solve the deficit crisis on the back of our seniors. We need all Americans to pay their fair share.

The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - or stimulus bill, as it is often called - is a perfect example in which dire circumstances necessitate immediate action. But with such large amounts of taxpayer money at stake, a hastily developed, under-thought-out plan could have been disastrous.

I don't care if it's a dollar or two dollars. If I'm governor, people should have skin in the game.

We represent the people's money, and we have to be good stewards of that.

If we don't get a hold of what we owe Americans who are providing services to our veterans, then the entire system collapses.

One of the cruellest things of all is to have a huge deficit in this country, meaning that everyone's children will be expected to pay back for our debt today. That is unfair as well.

If the official community is interested in asking the private sector to take another look at Greece, then it will have to be only as part of a broader process of addressing the full range of sovereign debt issues in Europe.

You can save a lot of money when you have responsible and bold policies that are in line with our principles, and we are telling the truth to Canadians.

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

Basically, Herman van Rompuy wants the European Union to become a debt union, which may be acceptable to some of the southern countries who are effectively bust. To the northern countries, it is not.

We need economic growth in Europe and we need to find a solution for the excessive interest rates that are making it difficult for many countries to get their own debt under control.

This is the joint responsibility of everyone who was involved in the introduction of the euro without understanding the consequences. When the euro was introduced, the regulators allowed banks to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds without setting aside any equity capital. And the European Central Bank discounted all government bonds on equal terms. So commercial banks found it advantageous to accumulate the bonds of the weaker countries to earn a few extra basis points.

You cannot form a community of countries of different strength without a certain amount of equilibrium. That is reflected in, for example, the EU budget and the bailout programs. That is why there are net payers and net recipients in Europe. A community cannot exist if the stronger do not take responsibility for the weaker.

Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.

How does the richest country in the history of the world fail to pay its bills?

Apparently the only people who are supposed to be responsible are the taxpayers - and they are increasingly made responsible for other people's irresponsibility.

A public debt is a public curse.

What my bill would do would be only for refugees going forward. So I haven't taken a position on sending anyone home. But I have taken the position that we have a lot of problems here in our country. And that one of the things that we do - charity is about giving your own money. Charity isn't giving someone else's money.

The United States, in people's perverted minds, is responsible for all the destitution and all the poverty and all the victimization around the world and it is our responsibility to let all of these people in precisely because it's our fault they exist as they do.

America is the brokest country in history. We owe more money than anyone has ever owed anyone. And Obama and Reid say relax, that's no reason not to spend more - because the world hasn't yet concluded we have no intention of paying it back. When they do, the dollar will collapse.

Americans have eliminated Iran's worst enemies, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam [Hussein]. I occasionally threatened my Iranian counterpart in Kabul that one day I would send him a big bill for what we did. But, seriously, Iran is pursuing a dual strategy in Iraq. On the one hand, the Iranians, after decades of hostility, are now interested in good relations. On the other hand, they want to keep the country weak and dominate the region.

If you put Canada into $1.5 trillion in debt and interest rates go up just 200 basis points, you cannot provide the services to 36 million people that were guaranteed to them in the social contract they have with Canada. That's a very, very scary prospect. You can't burden this economy with that much debt. The risk you take on is insurmountable. You have to assume for the next 50 years that rates don't go up? That's insane. That's irresponsible. That's stupid.

I'm very proud that President [George W.] Bush took on AIDS relief. It was the largest single response by any country to a major international health crisis, and there are millions of people who are alive today in Africa and other developing countries because of that program.