Stephen Harper Quotes

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

We can't continue to tax, borrow, and spend at the rates that we are, and it's just got to be stopped.

Rigorous financial discipline that, together with monetary stability, ends once and for all the boom and bust that for 30 years has undermined stability

We can't expect entrepreneurs and businesses large and small to take their life savings or their company's money and invest in America if they think we're headed to the road to Greece. And that's where we're going right now unless we finally get off this spending and borrowing binge. And I'll get us on track to a balanced budget.

You cannot have a society where you spend more than you earn. I mean, it's just fundamentally not viable in the long run.

Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.

When you're the president of the United States and you know that the biggest issue facing you is this cliff that we're about ready to head over if we don't get this spending and debt situation under control, it's very irresponsible not to take the action that is necessary to fix the problem.

While the deficit and debt are serious problems, I oppose solving these problems by raising taxes.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

Any government, like individuals and families, cannot spend more than they take in without courting disaster.

Let us have the courage to stop borrowing to meet continuing deficits. Revenues must cover expenditures by one means or another. Any government, like any family, can, for a year, spend a little more than it earns. But you know and I know that a continuation of the habit means the poor house.

I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That's one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we'll able to pay our bills down the road.

Only one thing can save this country, and that's to get a handle on this deficit and debt issue.

Nobody wants the United States to default on its debt. Nobody. But, at some point in time, we've got to address the fiscal woes of this nation.

Ultimately, we can't just keep doubling our national debt every eight years. We have got to get that under control and not spend more than we bring in.

Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury.

I will always vote what I have promised, and always vote the Constitution, as well as I will not vote for one single penny that isn't paid for, because debt is the monster, debt is what's going to eat us up and that is why our economy is on the brink.

I think everyday people on the street who have never been affiliated with the tea party movement are alarmed with the spending and the debt that we have.

What matters to me is that I do what I think is right and I see, I'm a numbers guy, that's my attitude. I know we have a debt tsunami coming, we are bankrupting this country and I'm in a position where I can actually advance ideas to prevent that from happening. That's exactly what I should be doing.

The Government has to stop borrowing as much money; if we don't, quite frankly New Zealand will be downgraded and interest rates will go up for all New Zealanders.

I've known Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles and they're two of the most independent people I've ever known in my life, and the thought we could somehow bend their views I find really beyond my capacity to believe.

The American people expect more from Congress. They expect fiscal responsibility and common sense. They expect us to return to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that we had enacted in the past that helped us establish a surplus, however briefly.

I have spoken about deficits, and I think deficits are important because they address broad economic and financial stability. We need to talk about that.

I believed the only thing that could turn around this government spending and mounting debt would be if the people rose up.

I mean, I'm a conservative. I believe that, you know, if you borrow too much, you just build up debts for your children to pay off. You put pressure on interest rates. You put at risk your economy. That's the case in Britain. We're not a reserve currency, so we need to get on and deal with this issue.