Lisa Murkowski Quotes

At a time of tight budgets, unless something is really broken and not working, they [his congressional colleagues] just don't get excited about it.

In difficult economic times, I'm firmly opposed to austerity.

I've, we have in this state, like many other states, we're experiencing an enormous budget deficit that we're trying to grapple with. But we will have progress despite the deficits.

All the states are required, either by constitution or by statute, to have balanced budgets - they're not able to print money. So they have to focus on establishing priorities.

However, the economics of our business continued to deteriorate. We barely escaped bankruptcy a year ago, and in the aftermath of that escape we had to make some even tougher decisions.

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.

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.

As families and small businesses alike are tightening their belts to account for the worsening economy, they have every right to ask: 'Why isn't my government doing the same?'

I have voted to make tough decisions in budgetary times, I've served on two recessionary budgets, my opponent has never served on any a budget committee where there was less money to spend than the year before.

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

If we can't find cuts in the defense budget, we're not looking carefully enough.

Balancing the budget is like going to Heaven. Everybody wants to do it, but nobody wants to do what you have to do to get there.

The President is asking our business men to economize and become more efficient, while we continue to be the most inefficient and expensive barnacle that ever attached itself to the ship of state.

The only way to meet the situation [the financial crisis] is spend less money and to run the City of New York within the limits of our resources. Unless you do this, gentlemen, you will have a difficult problem confronting you by the end of this year and the taxpayers of 1922 and the years thereafter will have to pay the price of our present lack of prudence or our unwillingness to economize at the proper time.

… bad times make for good policies, and good times make for bad policies.

Actively search for spending bills that I can veto as a sign of … financial stewardship.

As governor, I cut $5 billion in spending.

I was the governor that drew a tough, tough straw. I was governor during the worst recession since the 1930s, and I had to cut $5 billion from the state budget.

We need a straitjacket around Congress when it comes to spending so that they are forced to do what 49 states are required to do and what every family business and every family is required to do, and that's live within their means.

I am a governor who left office with a smaller general fund budget than when we started.

When your economy is not growing that fast, everybody's got to bite the bullet.

I'm not going to raise the debt ceiling.

I've been a conservative when it comes to budgeting issues and streamlining government.

I don't think I can sell to our voters in our district that there's nothing to cut in the federal budget. Nobody, I think, sees that or would agree with that.