Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

Only when the budget has been balanced and a substantial amount set aside for debt retirement, should we consider tax reduction.

As Indiana's governor, I balanced eight budgets, never raised taxes, and left the largest surplus in state history. It wasn't always easy. Cuts had to be made and some initiatives deferred. Occasionally I had to say 'no.'

How do you balance the budget, cut taxes and increase defense spending at the same time? It's very simple. You do it with mirrors.

I've made a commitment that any tax increase, I'm going to veto. It's the worst thing we could do. We have an amount of money to spend. That's it.

I believe very firmly that we can get to balanced budgets without raising taxes and without cutting transfers to the provinces or to individuals.

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

Governing isn't as easy as you think. Many of you have taken pledges that are contradictory - to balance the budget and cut taxes, for example. You must be honest about the numbers, since our annual deficit now exceeds all discretionary spending combined.

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

The only way to meet the situation [the financial crisis] is spend less money and to run the City of New York within the limits of our resources. Unless you do this, gentlemen, you will have a difficult problem confronting you by the end of this year and the taxpayers of 1922 and the years thereafter will have to pay the price of our present lack of prudence or our unwillingness to economize at the proper time.

I will veto again and again until spending is brought under control.

Fiscal conservatism means balancing budgets — not running deficits that the next generation can't afford. It means improving the efficiency of delivering services by finding innovative ways to do more with less. It means cutting taxes when possible and prudent to do so, raising them overall only when necessary to balance the budget, and only in combination with spending cuts. It means when you run a surplus, you save it; you don't squander it. And most importantly, being a fiscal conservative means preparing for the inevitable economic downturns — and by all indications, we've got one coming.

I did not come into government to win an award as the great accountant in the sky and balance budgets.

I came into politics partly because I want to be able to reduce taxes so that individuals have more of their money to spend, so that businesses have more of their money to create jobs, but I believe that lower taxes are sustainable when you get the public finances in order, so I will only make promises I can keep on taxation.

A tax cut would most certainly be my first choice rather than an increase in federal spending. Those who advocate that fail to see that spending not only continues in subsequent years, but it grows and grows.

We don't have a revenue problem in Annapolis. We have a spending problem we need to control.

Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.

There's no reason to raise taxes. Taxes should be lower... The problem we have is that government spends too much, not that taxes are too low.

You know, even people who talk about cutting spending and they go 'That's not the spending that I was actually talking about that you're supposed to be cutting.' Well, we have to be looking across the board.

We'll set our approach to borrowing, to spending, to taxation, in a sensible way on a sensible timescale.

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.

Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes.

When Governor Romney was out here, I told him, I said, 'we are following the formula of streamlining regulations, being job creating friendly, balancing budgets, cutting taxes, and, you know, using common sense. And if you get to be president, we are going to do more of that.'

What you really want to do is sit down and find a place that you can control government spending and raise more revenue.

People question me all the time about my experience. They question my experience in politics, and the first thing I always tell them is yes, I have no experience raising taxes over and over. I have no experience increasing the debt in a state.

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.'