Ronald Reagan Quotes

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

One thing that Washington D.C. does not do well is cut spending.

You may think my business is to make appropriations, but it is not. It is to prevent their being made.

The function of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I understand it, is to resist all demands for expenditure made by his colleagues and, when he can no longer resist, to limit the concession to the barest point of acceptance.

Increased spending, all these favors that we got to do for people - it's got to stop.

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.

I have said, with respect to authorization bills, that I do not want the Congress or the country to commit fiscal suicide on the installment plan.

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

The best thing to hold down spending is to have a Democratic President and a Republican Congress.

Washington has to stop spending money we don’t have for projects we don’t want.

I think anybody who looks at my record will say I've been trying to cut government spending and make government live more like families do.

We've got to take some drastic steps in this country. We can't keep spending and spending.

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.

My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together.

There was a big difference between Ron Paul and me when it came to the 'no.' His 'no' was philosophical. It was reasoned. It was right. My 'no' actually put a stop to legislation. It cut spending. Mine carried further than just no.

You got to have a courageous president to stand up and says, listen, if - if you send a bill to me that spends more money than what we've coming in, I'll veto it. I mean, I'm going to try to work with you the best I can, but I'm going to veto it.

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

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.

Mr. Obama's choices show how fundamentally unserious he is about deficit reduction and spending restraint.

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.

Disciplined governments do not engage in the economic equivalent of binge eating followed by crash dieting.

First of all, I don't like to speak about austerity. I'd prefer to speak of fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline, in the end, amounts to austerity if it is not accompanied by other policies.

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

Normally, when politicians talk about 'cutting the budget,' they really mean reducing the amount of increase. Actual spending goes up while the politicians claim to have 'cut the budget.'