Stephen Harper Quotes

Sequestration was not designed to be anyone's ideal method for getting our hands around government spending, and it certainly isn't mine.

The President has a short time to let people know that he is serious about getting spending under control.

Higher taxes is the road to ruin. We must and we will shrink our government, and that means making some tough choices, tightening our belts.

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.

Look, I am not worried about Washington cutting too much spending too fast. I mean, the kinds of spending cuts we're talking about just right now are $100 billion out of a $3.7 trillion budget.

I've made more cuts than any governor has ever made.

The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit. The deficit is the symptom of the disease.

You know government needs a haircut. If we keep their spending down, that's more money in your pocket.

But I think the global economy will understand that the United States has the ability to meet its obligations. But it's not going to be able to do it over the long term if we can't control the growth of government.

I'm coming to Washington, D.C., to do the people's work. And the people's work has to do with reducing spending and cutting budgets and, and trying to get a grip on the size of government.

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 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.

When businesses face tough times, one of the first items they cut is overhead expenses. The government should do the same.

As American families and businesses have been forced to tighten their belts, Washington has refused to do the same.

What you really want to do is sit down and find a place that you can control government spending and raise more revenue.

We're going to have to control the spending of government.

I have a record as governor. I have a record of cutting spending. And I talked yesterday not only about we ought to cut spending, I talked about how we've cut spending in Mississippi and how if you did the same things in the federal government, you would save tens of billions of dollars a year.

Someone has to stay on the line and say, no, we can do this by cutting spending and reducing the size of government. That's what I was committed to doing.

Like working families all across the state, we must find a way to make government live within its means.

When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.

The number of realists who are betting that both the 'economy gets healthy soon' and this government gets spending under control is a tiny group, indeed.

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

The Gillard government must give up its addiction to wasteful spending borrowing and taxing.

Families and businesses are tightening their belts to make ends meet - and Washington should too.

We need to stop this overspending. We need to start turning this battleship in the right direction. And we all have to share in the sacrifice.