Jacob J. Lew Quotes

We are worried about the size of the deficit, which is why the president is pleased that the House and Senate have followed his lead in cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.

To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget. You don't take more from the private sector and grow government with it. And that's exactly what Obama has in mind with this expiration of Bush tax cuts proposal of his.

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

In order to reduce the deficit, there has to be revenue in addition to cuts.

A long term tax cut is not a tax cut at all unless it is accompanied by a spending cut.

Republicans must stop putting tax increases on the fiscal cliff negotiating table and start demanding that Democrats put forth serious proposals to reduce spending.

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

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy. The left wants to focus on the deficit so they can take us away from the focus on spending as a percentage of the economy.

As Vermont's senator and a member of the Budget Committee, I will not support a plan to reduce the deficit that does not call for shared sacrifice.

Any politician that says no tax revenue or zero spending cuts does not deserve reelection. Our hole is so deep in this country with the debt and the debt service, the interest on that debt, before the big expenses come for Social Security and Medicare - for we baby boomers in a few years - that everything has to be on the table.

We must take away the government's credit card. With limits on both tax revenue and borrowing, the Federal government would finally be forced to get serious about spending cuts.

The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.

At his best, Obama promised to work with Republicans to reduce the deficit in a way that honors both individualism and community.

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.

I am a deficit hawk.

My opponent Senator Menendez and his colleagues are pursuing what I consider a Jon Corzine economic policy. Higher taxes, more spending, more debt.

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.

We're committed to working with Congress to doing what the president said he was always going to do, which is cut the deficit in half over the - over his first term.

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.

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.

Tonight, I come before you to announce that the federal deficit, once so incomprehensibly large that it had eleven zeroes, will be, simply zero.

It's time to cut up Uncle Sam's credit card.

Tonight I come before you to announce that the Federal Deficit will be simply zero.

Let’s make this the year where we are either going to get rid of the deficit or get rid of the idea that we are going to get rid of the deficit..

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