William Colby Quotes

Spare no expense to save money on this one.

When you have less revenue coming in the door, you have more money going out the door. You have to find ways of trimming.

There is such a desire to give everybody a piece, we're probably wasting a great deal of homeland security money trying to be politically correct, when we really need to make sure that our cities get the money they need.

What you don't do, if you're an adult, is decide that you're going to budget things through a sequester. What does that word have to do with budgeting? It's like if you have a family budget and go, 'We really don't know what to take out economically from the budget, so we're going to whack out protein for this week.'

We do not have a revenue problem in D.C. or this county. We have a prioritization problem. When you create the priorities you fund the priorities of the country and you stop spending money when you get to zero.

Budgets are blueprints and priorities.

It's a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth.

I started LearnVest with a tiny savings account where I paid designers, technologists, and even bartered... Because I started with paying for things myself with my own savings, it sharpened my focus of how to spend money.

Every government program needs to be more efficient. Instead of pointing out how other programs can tighten their belts, every program administrator must look inward to save money.

I've enjoyed programming on NPR, but 'we're broke' and therefore all spending must be reduced.

In a period of economic downturn, the overwhelming instinct is to pare back, cut costs, and lay off. If you do that, do so with your strategy in mind. The worst mistake is to cut across the board. Instead, reconnect and recommit to a clear strategy that will distinguish yourself from others.

The safest course for public officials is simply to throw all of the money in a sack.

If we can't find cuts in the defense budget, we're not looking carefully enough.

But obviously, we can't afford to make some bad long-term decisions with regard to basic commitments our country has - trade those away for some short-term assistance that may or may not be there a month from now.

Budget drives everything that we do.

Reducing future risks requires paying some immediate costs.

Austerity [in the Defense Department] meant that risks had to be managed, not eliminated.

From a productivity standpoint, you're supposed to reduce headcount on par with declining revenue. If you believe the environment isn't going to improve, you should take a bigger cut to get in front of the problems.

To a certain extent, I have to be the president's bad cop from time to time. I have to look people in the eye and tell them, 'No, we don't have enough money for that.' That is not a very popular thing to do in Washington.

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions to hold the line on spending.

One of our things is that money follows; it does not lead. So we want people that are fired up and passionate about their mission... and people that aren't so married to spreadsheets and thinking that kind of voodoo controls the future. Because it doesn't.

As a model, I look at clubs like Brighton and the success they've achieved gradually on a sustainable budget. I want to take a similar approach.

At what point do we accept the fact that throwing money at the problem isn't the solution?

A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.

Executives need ample flexibility to respond to the market. That means both reducing costs and increasing innovation.