Jim Cooper Quotes

I think it's the broadest source of dissatisfaction amongst Republicans, out-of-control spending.

Reagan proved deficits don't matter.

I've criticized Republicans for their lack of fiscal discipline when they controlled Congress before 2007. However, that is no excuse to just continue with more of the same or, as the case is now, to make it worse. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's budget, we will double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10.

George W. Bush is a big spender…. When Congress sends up a bill with big. fat, crackling pork, he says, “Where’s the barbecue sauce?”

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy. The left wants to focus on the deficit so they can take us away from the focus on spending as a percentage of the economy.

You know, when Republicans were in charge, we doubled the debt. But, now, our concern is the Democrats are in charge and they're tripling the debt. So, really, our concern is that we want smaller government.

Bush has never sent over a balanced budget.

The folks celebrating Jim Bunning are seeing him as an anti-government, anti-spending activist. But to embrace Jim Bunning is to embrace a strange record, if you really are a libertarian, if you really are a deficit hawk, if you really care about spending and responsibility.

I'm not going to stop beating up on the Democrats for wasteful spending.

I personally do not worship at the alter of a balanced budget.

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.

Like Ike [President Eisenhower] did. Talk economy and then spend away.

Social spending is going up at a tremendous rate. The irony is that it went up even faster during the “prudent” years of Republican administration more so than it did under the “spendthrift” Democratic administrations….

Last year 100,000 people gathered on The Mall to Protest the deficit. We Republicans, over and over, castigated President Obama for creating a Trillion dollar deficit. I was against big deficits then, and I am agaist them now. Just because it is now Republicans doing all the spending, I am still opposed.... Those Republcians who voted for a tax cut and a spending increase are hypocrites.

Now fiscal responsibility is generally a good thing, and so a centrism mindlessly focused on tweaking legislation away from deficit spending has its uses.

I often criticized what President Bush did, but President Obama is Bush's spending on steroids.

The main issue is huge government spending, and my record has been trying to make sure the federal government lives within its means. I guess that's really what separates where Republicans have been from the Democrats.

I'm not a professional politician. I'm a professional problem solver, and I believe we should cut the salaries of senators and congressmen 10 percent until they balance the budget. I call that conservative common sense.

Ask yourself if these Democrats still speak for you. When they say we have a duty to grow government even when we can't afford it, does it sound like compassion to you - or recklessness?

Obama did inherit a deficit when he came into office. Why this fact justifies racking up vastly more debt and bigger deficits is a logical mystery.

The American people know that we cannot spend our way to prosperity.

I would cap the amount of federal government can spend at 20 percent of the economy. Bring it back to 20 percent or lower. And say, we are not going to spend above that level. Democrats, they want to raise your taxes and spend more and more and turn us into an economy which is no longer driven by the private sector.

When Bill Clinton was in town, he sent over a balanced budget.

All we're getting from the Democratic majority in Congress and from this White House is more bailouts, more spending, more planned stimulus, more deficits and debt, and the American people have had it.

As a fiscal conservative, I think that our government should pay for itself.