Betsy DeVos Quotes

Let's not go through that again. Redirect it, reduce the amount of money spent, but let's not destroy it. Because you don't know 10 years out what you're going to face.

Not all spending initiatives were designed to be immortal.

Reducing future risks requires paying some immediate costs.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

You have to separate what needs to be done to avoid the fiscal cliff and what needs to be done longer range. It's a mistake to essentially collapse those two - they're not the same. I don't think you can achieve everything at once.

Looking at the high cost of occupation in Iraq and the needs we have in this country, would it not have been better to have smaller tax cuts in order to keep down the deficits.

I'm not saying my idea is the one and only idea. We should have other ideas, but the president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency. I do that.

Money should not, and must not, change our commitment to solving problems and building this state.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

Given the scale of issues like global warming and epidemic disease, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of a can-do attitude to science rather than a can't-afford-it attitude.

[The] up-and-down pattern of [defense] spending over the last 18 years averages out to below zero percent real growth. In other words, if defense spending had followed a path of zero percent real growth, the U.S. probably could have obtained more defense for its dollar.

Under no circumstances will I allow expenditures upon works not clearly national.

When a government agency is more efficient, they’re not necessarily going to get that money back. So they don’t always have an incentive.

I do not think we can get any legislation this session for extension of land grants unless we pay more for it than it is worth.

We don’t care what the cost-benefit is. We’re going to build it somehow because Congress says it’s going to be built.

Cost effectiveness and effectiveness are not always the same thing in government.

Prioritizing spending and maximizing the effectiveness of taxpayer dollars is absolutely essential. We must draw the line, realigning programs when necessary and also eliminating failed programs.

I don't have a magic formula for prioritizing the world's problems.

We can't spend money on programs just because they sound good... Meals on Wheels sounds great.

We ought to prioritize national disasters... in a fiscally responsible way.

We can't solve all of our problems in a short time.

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions to hold the line on spending.

It's often hard to just throw money at a problem when you don't really know what the problem is.

It's a lot easier to figure out how to scale something that doesn't feel like it would scale than it is to figure out what is actually gonna work. You're much better off going after something that will work that doesn't scale, then trying to figure how to scale it up, than you are trying to figure it all out.

We have perfected the art of finding problems without fixing real-world issues. We focus too much on complexity, not harm.