Mark Zandi Quotes

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

It's going to be true that anything that reduces the federal deficit will have somebody unhappy.

But despite historic levels of obstruction, President Obama was able to bring the economy back from the verge of a second Great Depression.

We need a smaller, leaner Washington. It won't happen if we raise taxes without any coinciding reform and serious slashing of spending.

The U.S. have printed money; they intend to tax the rich in order to avoid the fiscal cliff. These are things that sees anyone who dares to propose them in Greece and Europe labeled an extremist, when at the same time, it's what Obama does.

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.

We're going to have to raise revenues in some form or fashion, and we're going to have to cut spending, including entitlements of all kind, including the military. We all know this. Lets get on with it.

The debate we won't be having is whether or not the debt ceiling should be raised. We will not have a situation where people will hold the American economy hostage in order to achieve a specific agenda - at least not until 2013. So we think that is incredibly important as a matter of economic good.

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.

It's going to be difficult to stimulate the real economy in the U.S. at a faster rate than 2 percent and perhaps even less if we have that fiscal cliff in December or January 2013.

When in crisis did government get smaller?

Let's be clear: raising taxes during a very slow recovery is likely to lead to another recession, and it will do absolutely nothing to balance the budget.

We've got to take some drastic steps in this country. We can't keep spending and spending.

But the point you need to know is that no president at war cut taxes $1.5 trillion, like Bush did.

The Beltway is waking up to the realities of Prsident Obam's budget plan, which taxes, spends, and borrows as far as the eye can see.

I am not for raising taxes in a recession, especially when it comes to job creators that we need so desperately to start creating jobs again.

In the middle of a recession no tax increase is justified because it kills jobs, and any tax increase is a job-killing measure and should be defeated.

There's no recovery on Main Street, I can tell you that for sure. And in a re - in an economy like this, we don't need to be raising anybody's taxes.

In the middle of a recession, where we're just climbing out of it, where the economy -unemployment is still at 9.7 percent, the idea of raising taxes and reducing spending is a prescription for disaster.

I think I should pay more taxes... but everything they take from me should go to reduce the debt.

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.

You don't raise taxes in times of such uncertainty.

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.

Hiking taxes on the so-called wealthy would help send us into a recession because so many small businesses report their income on individual tax returns. If taxes are raised, they will be less likely to be able to hire new workers and make new capital investments.

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