John Henry Carver Quotes

Before we give you billions more, we want to know what you've done with the trillion you've got.

We design our own programmes; we take leadership. Of course the donors come in to support us, to complement our efforts. Our responsibility to the donors is about accountability: about how we use that money. If somebody gives you his money, definitely he will be interested in knowing how you spend the money.

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my first responsibility is to the taxpayer.

The American people expect their government to manage their hard-earned tax dollars responsibly.

You can be someone running...who is just a soaring leader of people. But if you don't have the finances down, you're going to have a problem.

Can there not be a limit to the fact that really you need to cut your cloth in accordance with what capabilities and finances you have?

It's a bit ridiculous to have people who have two years of experience handling an $83 billion budget.

And if we make the process political, if we start to make it personal, we're actually going to frustrate good public policy, in terms of managing this money.

Fiscal responsibility and government reform are going to be good themes for governing, well at any time, but particularly coming out of a recovery.

Budgets are blueprints and priorities.

By finding waste and abuse in entitlement programs, and eliminating it, we can ensure that the funds that are put into these programs go to the people that need them the most.

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

Budgets are nothing if not statements of priorities.

The more you keep costs down, the more freedom you have creatively.

When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state.

Every government program needs to be more efficient. Instead of pointing out how other programs can tighten their belts, every program administrator must look inward to save money.

I am responsible for managing more schoolteachers' and firemen's money than anybody in the world. That's an enormous responsibility.

The safest course for public officials is simply to throw all of the money in a sack.

We ought to start running the government like a private-sector business. I have that ability as CEO of our companies. I have line item vetoes, and if I didn't, we'd probably be out of business by now.

I sign off not only every investment, but every dollar that goes out the door - I'm aware of it.

We're failing when it comes to controlling spending.

He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet.

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.

I've known the last half dozen budget directors and not one of them ever leveled with me.