Pat Toomey Quotes

It's insane to try to balance the budget.

The only way to meet the situation [the financial crisis] is spend less money and to run the City of New York within the limits of our resources. Unless you do this, gentlemen, you will have a difficult problem confronting you by the end of this year and the taxpayers of 1922 and the years thereafter will have to pay the price of our present lack of prudence or our unwillingness to economize at the proper time.

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

We'll set our approach to borrowing, to spending, to taxation, in a sensible way on a sensible timescale.

All the states are required, either by constitution or by statute, to have balanced budgets - they're not able to print money. So they have to focus on establishing priorities.

If it took multiple debt ceiling hikes, I'd rather achieve the savings.

There is a very serious fiscal-policy question of, 'Are we running our overall fiscal policy such that we as a government can pay our bills?'

Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well.

Let us have the courage to stop borrowing to meet continuing deficits. Revenues must cover expenditures by one means or another. Any government, like any family, can, for a year, spend a little more than it earns. But you know and I know that a continuation of the habit means the poor house.

I don't have a firm line on balanced budgets.

In addition to reining in spending, taxes, tolls and fees, let's rein in how much the state borrows.

Congress must do what we said we would and find ways to pay for bills we propose so we don't leave future generations mired in debt.

What's really important to me is that we have fiscally responsible balanced budgets.

But I think the global economy will understand that the United States has the ability to meet its obligations. But it's not going to be able to do it over the long term if we can't control the growth of government.

What matters to me is that I do what I think is right and I see, I'm a numbers guy, that's my attitude. I know we have a debt tsunami coming, we are bankrupting this country and I'm in a position where I can actually advance ideas to prevent that from happening. That's exactly what I should be doing.

What I wanted to do was see if we couldn't balance the budget.

Near-term deficits are temporary and manageable if - and only if - we keep spending in check, the tax burden low and the economy growing.

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

We have been spending beyond our means, we are going to focus on the projects that we committed to in the election but importantly if there is additional projects or new things that come up they have to have a business case, they have to work and they can't impose financial stress on families and private individuals and businesses.

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.

Without a doubt, first thing we should do is clean up our fiscal house, and that starts with balancing our budgets and digging out of this red ink. We cannot expect to continue in this fashion and remain the leader of the free world.

People question me all the time about my experience. They question my experience in politics, and the first thing I always tell them is yes, I have no experience raising taxes over and over. I have no experience increasing the debt in a state.

We're going to have to control the spending of government.

If you ask people do you think that government should spend less money than what it takes in, most people agree with that.

If you raise taxes, it won't reduce the deficit. The other team will simply spend the resources.