Ronald Reagan Quotes

[T]he burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.

The federal government cannot maintain a budget surplus any more than an alcoholic can leave a fresh bottle of whiskey untouched in the cupboard.

I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues in this campaign. In my opinion it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business.

The problem with our deficit is not because Americans are taxed too little. The problem with the deficit is because Washington spends too much money. We have got to stop spending money we don't have.

Hearing politicians tell us we can't afford a tax cut is like listening to a glutton tell you he can't afford a diet. In no other context do people talk about paying for money they don't have. I can't pay for your refusal to give me money because I need a yacht.

There's no reason to raise taxes. Taxes should be lower... The problem we have is that government spends too much, not that taxes are too low.

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.

After almost 50 years in which federal spending averaged about 20 percent of GDP, Joe Sestak and Nancy Pelosi took federal spending to 25 percent. You know, that's a 25 percent increase in the size of the government overnight. That's what we - that's what we've got to rein in.

We could say the government spend like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors, because the sailors are spending their own money.

Governments don't reduce deficits by raising taxes on the people; governments reduce deficits by controlling spending and stimulating new wealth.

If the US government spends 40 percent of the nation's income, as it does through either borrowing or taxes, that income is not available for people to spend. The deficit is an indirect method of taxation. Of course, politicians prefer to borrow instead of tax because then someone down the road has to deal with the consequences.

For as long as I can remember the slogan has been ... the federal government ought to behave more like families, because families balance their budgets. It turns out that families looked around and said, "You know what? Let's behave more like the government!"

The president has borrowed more money to spend to less effect than anybody on the planet.

Democrats have always wanted to grow government with revenues from our society's producers. They aren't sincere about reducing the deficit, because they will not abandon their addiction to spending other people's money.

We [Federal Government] have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.

Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy.

You know, even people who talk about cutting spending and they go 'That's not the spending that I was actually talking about that you're supposed to be cutting.' Well, we have to be looking across the board.

We need transparency in government spending. We need to put each government expenditure online so every Floridian can see where their tax money is being spent.

Remember that government doesn't earn one single dollar it spends. In order for you to get money from the government, that money must first be taken from somebody else.

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.

There is a very serious fiscal-policy question of, 'Are we running our overall fiscal policy such that we as a government can pay our bills?'

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy.

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.