Christina Romer Quotes

We are worried about the size of the deficit, which is why the president is pleased that the House and Senate have followed his lead in cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.

We had a $10 billion budget deficit when we got here in January of 2003. We cut that budget deficit; we did not raise taxes; we came back in '05, and we had an $8 billion surplus. That's how fast it can happen.

Without deficit reduction, we cannot have sustained economic growth.

Of course we have to address the deficit if we win.

Defense spending as a share of the economy dropped significantly during the early 1990s, and that was one of the things, along with other policy changes, that put us back on the path to a balanced budget.

The right way to deal with a budget problem that was years in the making is by formulating a credible plan to reduce the deficit over time and as the economy is able to withstand the necessary fiscal belt-tightening. That is what President Obama is doing.

In addition to myself and a number of others, President Clinton talked about the deficit and the debt issue. And he pointed out, really, what I pointed out, which is that when he left office, we actually had projected surpluses for a long period of time, because when he put together his economic plan, he did it in a balanced way.

When Mr. Obama entered office, he said all the right things about getting Washington spending under control. He even promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Obviously, that didn't happen.

We agree with Simpson and Bowles and others who have looked at this. What's necessary is to stabilize the debt and then work from there. You can't balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy.

The deficit only became a big problem in the Reagan-Bush years. For 12 years, Republican presidents talked about balancing the budget, but failed to propose one.

Let us act with our eyes open. We are going to have a deficit next fiscal year and the year after that.

Let’s make this the year where we are either going to get rid of the deficit or get rid of the idea that we are going to get rid of the deficit..

The first order of business is the elimination of the annual deficit.

It certainly would be helpful going forward for deficit reduction efforts to focus on the medium term while not subtracting from the impetus we need to keep a fragile economy moving forward.

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.

The Tea Party knows that continuing to delay charting a course to spending reform hurts everybody.

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.

No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.

Cutting budget deficits can never be just an exercise in economics.

Sound public finances are the essential foundation on which to construct a better-balanced economy from the wreckage of Labour's boom and bust. But it is economic growth that will create the jobs and the prosperity for the future and enable us to pay down Labour's debt.

Even with not having a balanced budget at this time, I support tax cuts. That will help limit spending.

I am a deficit hawk.

It is admitted on all sides that we must equalize the revenue and expenditures. The scheme of borrowing to make up an increasing deficit must, in the end, if continued, prove ruinous.

Well, a deficit reflects an imbalance between spending and revenue, and so narrowing it requires acting on one, the other or both.

We're committed to working with Congress to doing what the president said he was always going to do, which is cut the deficit in half over the - over his first term.