Lindsey Graham Quotes

Tax increases slow economic growth. Why would you raise taxes? We need to reform spending, the tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities can never be funded by tax increases, that can only be fixed by reducing spending.

My goal in getting rid of tax loopholes is not to raise taxes. Our problem in Washington, D.C. is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem.

I'm for eliminating deductions and taking some of the money to buy down rates and put it on the debt. That's not raising taxes. That's solving a problem.

You've got to either say you're going to cut taxes and find some spending cuts. I think we ought to reform long-term entitlement spending in the country, but you can't out of one side of your mouth say, 'Yes, we're for tax cuts, we're for spending discipline, and we're for bringing down the debt.'

While the deficit and debt are serious problems, I oppose solving these problems by raising taxes.

When you're talking about long-term deficit reduction, $4 trillion worth, entitlement reform needs to be part of it.

We ought to pay down the national debt, ... The American people are tired of people who make promises about cutting taxes that they cannot keep.

Actually, as president of the Conference of Mayors, we passed the Simpson-Bowles plan as a template, as a template, as a frame work for moving forward and the president has done the same.

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

Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government.

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.

I think that when we look out with our underfunded liabilities and our national debt over $14 trillion, I think if we are part of that movement to get our government spending under control, I think that would be a tremendous legacy to leave.

I think I should pay more taxes... but everything they take from me should go to reduce the debt.

Obama's claim is that he wants to give. The GOP is saying it wants to take.

Obviously, there has to be a profound change in direction. Otherwise, interest on the national debt will start eating up virtually every penny that we have.

GOP candidates routinely sign a pledge never, ever to raise taxes. Democratic candidates aren't even asked to sign a parallel pledge never, ever to cut entitlements.

The Missourians I hear from just don't buy the idea that the only way to tackle the national debt is to drastically alter Medicare and Social Security.

The question is: How do we reduce spending from 25% of GDP, which is where Obama put us? The focus is on total government spending. Can we bring it down, in a reasonable and politically acceptable way? That's what the Paul Ryan plan does. It puts us on a gradual reform path to reducing the size of government.

I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face and say they are for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, completely unpaid for.

In the end, all Republicans want to make sure we don't increase taxes. That's where we differ with the Democrats.

President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

Never before in the history of civilization has there been a tax cut in time of war.

To deal with entitlements we must either raise taxes, cut benefits, or borrow inordinate amounts of money.

Erskine Bowles and I know that we have been successful with this commission because we have pissed off almost everyone in America.

You can always raise taxes on the rich, but that will not solve the deficit problem.