Mike Braun Quotes

We Hoosiers hold to some quaint notions. Some might say we 'cling' to them, though not out of fear or ignorance. We believe in paying our bills. We have kept our state in the black throughout the recent unpleasantness, while cutting rather than raising taxes, by practicing an old tribal ritual - we spend less money than we take in.

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.

When people talk about conservative government, that's it in a nutshell. We're using taxpayers' money like we would use our own. We're holding in the reins during good times so we're prepared during bad times.

To simply argue that public spending must always go up and never be cut is irresponsible.

Some states like Nebraska have thus far responsibly managed their budgets, even in tough times, and I could not ask Nebraskans to pay for poor governance elsewhere.

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

I look at this in a very simple way: I want to bring the debt down.

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.

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

As Indiana's governor, I balanced eight budgets, never raised taxes, and left the largest surplus in state history. It wasn't always easy. Cuts had to be made and some initiatives deferred. Occasionally I had to say 'no.'

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

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.

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.

Someone has to stay on the line and say, no, we can do this by cutting spending and reducing the size of government. That's what I was committed to doing.

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

When I became mayor of New York City, I had a $2.4 billion deficit. And everybody wanted me to raise taxes. I said, 'If I raise taxes, I'll drive people out of New York City, and then I'll be raising taxes again.' So what I did was I cut expenses by 15 percent.

When our most important issue is the debt that we're piling on our children and grandchildren, I think it's pretty helpful to have someone in the U.S. Senate who has actually managed billions of dollars and knows how to cut billions of dollars.

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.

It's insane to try to balance the budget.

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

If you don't get spending under control, eventually you're going to have a big tax increase.

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.

There is a difficult leap between talking about balancing the budget and actually doing it.

If the rest of Washington ran as efficiently as this football team there wouldn't be any deficit.

Like Ike [President Eisenhower] did. Talk economy and then spend away.