Rahm Emanuel Quotes

The biggest source of getting the country to a balanced budget is not by raising taxes or by cutting spending. It's by encouraging the growth of the economy.

We have to deal with two issues. Spending and taxes.

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

Taxes are forever; spending cuts are transitory.

Trying to balance the budget through defense cuts is both counterproductive and impossible.

Taxes are an important tool for us together with infrastructure investments, research, and development to create more jobs.

I think growing an economy is a good way to help with a deficit, but ultimately, it's about fiscal discipline and responsible spending - and smart decisions.

It is time to recognize a simple fact of life. Contrary to what some of my colleagues seem to believe, tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

The American people elected us here to cut spending so we can create an environment for jobs in America. The House has acted. We have demonstrated that we want to see spending, discretionary spending, brought down to levels of 2008. We've seen no counteraction. We have seen no position that has been expressed by the other side at all.

Memo to Congress: America's problem is not that government is too small. It's the spending, stupid!

One of the reasons we don't have our deficit under control is because Republicans are wusses and won't tell their base a simple fact that everyone knows. We can't eliminate the deficit without raising some revenue... They're wusses.

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

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

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

Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.

We can't continue to kick the can when it comes to the fiscal state of this country.

Instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

In order to reduce the deficit, there has to be revenue in addition to cuts.

My opponent Senator Menendez and his colleagues are pursuing what I consider a Jon Corzine economic policy. Higher taxes, more spending, more debt.

If you could bring to me a majority of people to say that we're going to have $10 of spending cuts for $1 of revenue enhancement, put me in, coach.

If you're opposed to the budget I submitted to the General Assembly, you're for a tax increase.

As long as we're focused on spending, there are only two ways to do that: One is spend less, and Democrats have no solutions for that. Or we have pro-growth policies that make the economy grow so the dead-weight cost of government becomes a smaller percentage of the economy and therefore less expensive.

Raising taxes doesn't create jobs, and this is a common sense thing. Washington doesn't get it. They believe if they take more money and send it to Washington, D.C. somehow they create wealth. It doesn't work.

We have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. The less we spend, the more jobs we have the potential to create.

I personally don't believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending, either one, until we get this economy off the ground. I'll pay more, but it won't solve the problem.