Lisa Murkowski Quotes

Now make no mistake, I think we need a strong dose of fiscal conservatism in Washington, D.C.

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.

Even with not having a balanced budget at this time, I support tax cuts. That will help limit spending.

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.

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

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.

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

As a fiscal conservative, I think that our government should pay for itself.

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.

When Mr. Obama entered office, he said all the right things about getting Washington spending under control. He even promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Obviously, that didn't happen.

The deficit only became a big problem in the Reagan-Bush years. For 12 years, Republican presidents talked about balancing the budget, but failed to propose one.

The first order of business is the elimination of the annual deficit.

Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.

I'm a Conservative who believes in lower taxes. They lead to a more enterprising economy. But I'm not somebody who believes you can fund lower taxes by borrowing more money.

One of the reasons we don't have our deficit under control is because Republicans are wusses and won't tell their base a simple fact that everyone knows. We can't eliminate the deficit without raising some revenue... They're wusses.

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

Our morbidly obese federal government needs not just behavior modification but bariatric surgery.

In a clean break from the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. That is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.

I think Governor Romney has a two-part budget plan that very much levels with voters far more so than any candidate in my lifetime.

Well, a deficit reflects an imbalance between spending and revenue, and so narrowing it requires acting on one, the other or both.

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

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

If you could bring to me a majority of people to say that we're going to have $10 of spending cuts for $1 of revenue enhancement, put me in, coach.

I think where I differ a little bit, we absolutely have to think about the deficit looking down the road. And certainly that's something the president has said that we need to, as the economy recovers, have a plan in place for getting it down.