Roy Blunt Quotes

Make no mistake: I will work with both Democrats and Republicans to cut wasteful spending and reduce our debt in a balanced, responsible way.

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.

When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.

To cut the federal budget without cutting entitlements is like giving up chocolate-chip cookies and then deciding it's OK to eat the ones that don't have any nuts.

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.'

Only in Washington do you hear a budget increase described as a cut.

I think it's essential that we do more than talk about austerity measures and cutting.

You know government needs a haircut. If we keep their spending down, that's more money in your pocket.

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.

In my political career, I'd like to see a constitutional balanced budget amendment.

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.

It is time we passed a balanced budget amendment and return this government to limited spending.

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

In coming to the Congress as a new Member and becoming a fellow Blue Dog, we have had an opportunity to share and really spend a great deal of time in examining the challenges that our Nation finds itself in in getting its fiscal house in order.

The only way you can raise the debt ceiling is to change the trajectory of spending - that's my personal preference. But I want the Ways and Means Committee to offer up a solution.

I was able to promote a strong defense budget when it could have been cut a lot more severely.

States, virtually all of them, have a constitutional requirement to operate on a balanced budget.

There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.

Government spending clearly needs some adjusting. But a budget is a statement of our priorities, and balancing our spending on the backs of our nation's seniors is not the right approach.

The most remarkable thing about Calvin Coolidge is that he served for 67 months, and when he left office, the budget was lower than he came in. In real terms - in nominal terms with vanilla on top - he cut the budget year over year.

The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit. The deficit is the symptom of the disease.

Can the amazing national debt be paid by a little trifling sum squeezed from year to year out of America?.... Would it not be much superior wisdom, and sounder policy, for a distressed kingdom to retrench the vast unnecessary expenses continually incurred by its enormous vices?

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.

We give lip service to the importance of deficit reduction, but Americans oppose every single thing that you might do to reduce the deficit.