Kristi Noem Quotes

It's much more powerful to say I'm working to reduce spending, deal with our nation's deficit, push back on the federal government, and give specifics for that rather than just say, 'I'm a conservative.'

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

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.

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.

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.

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 small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets.

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

Washington, D.C., could learn a few budget lessons from Florida. The contrast between our state and the nation's capital is remarkable.

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 am a fiscal conservative.

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.

My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together.

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

No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.

Memo to Congress: America's problem is not that government is too small. It's the spending, stupid!

Cutting budget deficits can never be just an exercise in economics.

When Bill Clinton was in town, he sent over a balanced budget.

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.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

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.