Pat Buchanan Quotes

I am a deficit hawk.

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.

Our priority must be to build a path towards balancing the budget, and we cannot tolerate growing deficits.

Even with not having a balanced budget at this time, I support tax cuts. That will help limit spending.

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

I've made a commitment that any tax increase, I'm going to veto. It's the worst thing we could do. We have an amount of money to spend. That's it.

Of course we have to address the deficit if we win.

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

Bush has never sent over a balanced budget.

I was able to promote a strong defense budget when it could have been cut a lot more severely.

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.

The American people want a balanced budget. They want Congress to stop this barbaric practice of perpetual deficit spending. It really, if you think about it, is a form of taxation without representation. We fought a war over that issue and we won that war.

States, virtually all of them, have a constitutional requirement to operate on a balanced budget.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown committed to John Major's spending envelopes in 1997. No-one said that Tony Blair and John Major were identical. This happens quite often that parties actually, despite all the sound and fury, agree on the overall need to make sure that we live within our means as a country.

If you ask people do you think that government should spend less money than what it takes in, most people agree with that.

If you raise taxes, it won't reduce the deficit. The other team will simply spend the resources.

There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.

The deficit only became a big problem in the Reagan-Bush years. For 12 years, Republican presidents talked about balancing the budget, but failed to propose one.

You know, to preserve our job-friendly climate the Texas legislature didn't raise taxes this last legislative session while balancing their budget and maintaining their reserves - and might I add that our budget leaves $6 billion dollars in a rainy day fund?

We had a $10 billion budget deficit when we got here in January of 2003. We cut that budget deficit; we did not raise taxes; we came back in '05, and we had an $8 billion surplus. That's how fast it can happen.

We in Tennessee know that low taxes, less government, and less spending are the ways to grow our economy.

A long term tax cut is not a tax cut at all unless it is accompanied by a spending cut.

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

We must get rid of deficit spending which finances the political schemes of today by mortgaging the future of tomorrow.

Tonight I come before you to announce that the Federal Deficit will be simply zero.