David Valadao Quotes

If Congress can't get a budget passed when they're supposed to, it's just common sense they shouldn't get paid.

Harry Reid and the Senate haven't passed a budget. Their pay should be reduced until they do.

I firmly believe that if members of Congress fail to perform their most basic duty in passing a budget, then they do not deserve to be paid.

If you think that my job is to rob the Federal Treasury on your behalf, you have voted for the wrong man

The federal government is currently operating on a budget passed in the dead of night just before Christmas. It comprised three massive documents, ran to a staggering 3,296 pages, weighed in at a hefty 43 pounds, and had a price tag of $650 billion. Congress had about three hours to look at it before voting on it.

Congress is not an ATM

I think to balance the budget, probably every federal department has to take cuts in my opinion.

I continue to vote against such spending increases, but sometimes I think some of my Republican colleagues forgot that we were sent here to shrink the federal government, not to grow it.

I am not one of those who believe that we are bound to vote supplies to cover a deficiency in the treasury whenever called on, without investigating the causes which occasioned it.

The American people expect more from Congress. They expect fiscal responsibility and common sense. They expect us to return to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that we had enacted in the past that helped us establish a surplus, however briefly.

It is past time for Republican leadership to answer for record deficits and reckless spending, both in Iraq and in the U.S. It's time for a plan to bring our troops home.

It is not secret here in Congress we have not had the discipline in many instances to keep our hands out of the cookie jar of Social Security. Now to stop this I propose that in the future that Congress cannot get its hands on the money in the first place.

It is being alleged that the Federal Government is 'cutting' spending. In fact, we are not 'cutting' anything. Defense spending under this budget would rise by 4.3 percent over last year. Other discretionary spending would also rise.

You eventually have to figure out how to balance the books. So that's the reason I gave up my day job to come do this was to go fight to create the space where spending matches America's capacity to tax, and that means economic growth and a smaller, humbler federal government.

We simply can't keep providing money from the federal government in the form of subsidized or actual loans and Pell Grants when we don't have the money.

We have to be realistic about what the state can afford, and put an end to abuses of the system that cost millions.

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.'

What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.

It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Government economically administered.

Under no circumstances will I allow expenditures upon works not clearly national.

The deficit had become a symbol of our inability to control and manage the cost of government.

What would be better is to discipline our lawmakers in Sacramento so that they do not spend more money than they have.

Every dime spent is a political decision made.

Government does not have basic business sense.

We should not, cannot, and will not balance the budget on the backs of our veterans.