Fiorello H. La Guardia Quotes

But, you know, all I can do is submit my budget and then make the case to the Legislature to act.

There is no question that we are in a period in which we are going to have to use those sources to fund about 35 million dollars a year that used to be paid for by the federal government.

The federal government is currently operating on a budget passed in the dead of night just before Christmas. It comprised three massive documents, ran to a staggering 3,296 pages, weighed in at a hefty 43 pounds, and had a price tag of $650 billion. Congress had about three hours to look at it before voting on it.

Government can’t work if lawmakers don’t give Government agencies the funds they need to do their work.

When you're the president of the United States, you have no money unless the Congress says, 'Here's what you can spend it on.'

One of the most important tasks of the United States House of Representatives is to pass a budget resolution.

The Budget Act of 1974 established a timetable for the annual budget process. Under Title III of the Act, Congress is to complete action on the concurrent resolution on the budget by April 15.

Congress, of course, is not bound to accept the president's budget figures, but the House has the sole power to appropriate funds for spending, and it is a duty that should not be ignored.

When the Budget has once been approved by the President and transmitted to Congress, it is his budget estimate and no officer or official of the War Department would have any right to come up here and attempt to get a single dollar more than is contained in that estimate .

... the Social Security trust fund is not spare money; it is spoken for.

The federal budget is the workplan of the nation.

The national budget is perhaps the most important and least understood documents in Washington.

The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of the government. They, in a word, hold the purse: that powerful instrument by which we behold in the in the history of the British constitution an infant and humble representation of the people, gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government.

As a general rule, the demands of the current year, especially in time of peace, should be provided for by the revenues of that year.

A behemoth budget does not mean there is much discretion in allocating it.

Can there be a more lamentable picture than that of a Chancellor of the Exchequer seated on an empty chest by a pool of bottomless deficiency fishing for a budget?

Next to the effectual establishment of the Union, the best possible precaution against danger from standing armies is a limitation of the term for which revenue may be appropriated to their support.

I think $100 at the end of the year doesn't mean a lot to me, but $100 from everyone in the state at the end of the year could mean lots of programs that could be good for Hawaii.

In the state of Michigan, where I served in the state Legislature, there was a lot of shuffling of money between one year and the other to balance the budget.

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own deficits. This will create greater pressure for higher state and local taxes.

The best legislator is the one who votes for all appropriations and against all taxes.

It is difficult even now for the President to avoid giving his approbation to any law appropriating money for a road or canal.

We have no choice but to make our local government fit the size of our local economy. We must all bear our share of the pain.

You spend a billion here and a billion there. Sooner of later it adds up to real money.

The budget is looked upon in the Congress as a way for a political party to promote itself.