Bernie Sanders Quotes

When you talk about entitlement programs, it's not just about - it's not about cutting those programs. It is about saving those programs. Those programs are on a path of fiscal unsustainability.

They're all tied together: taxes, Medicare, Social Security, and the debt. We've got to have a setting of priorities, and looking at it - at each of them as disconnected, I think, doesn't properly address these major challenges.

There is a lot of fiscal conservatives in the United States senate that didn't vote for that because we understand that national security spending is not the reason why we have a debt. Our debt is being driven by the way Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and, by the way, the interest on the debt is structured in the years to come.

I love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. I inherited a trillion-dollar deficit. ... This notion that somehow we caused the deficits is just wrong. It's just not true. ... If they start trying to give you a bunch of facts and figures suggesting that it's true, what they're not telling you is they baked all this stuff into the cake with those tax cuts and a prescription drug plan that they didn't pay for and the wars.

What Donald Trump is proposing with these massive tax cuts will result in a $20 trillion additional national debt. That will have dire consequences for Social Security and Medicare.

No one was elected to Congress because he or she promised to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

I think we should worry about Social Security first and then tax cuts second.

A mature welfare state is always broke.

The most important area for spending restraint is entitlement reform.

How does one leave Social Security and Medicare untouched, grow defense by more than $50 billion, slash taxes, launch a $1 trillion infrastructure program - and not explode the deficit and national debt?

It is foolish for Republicans to continue opening the door to job-killing tax hikes while Democrats refuse to explain how they propose to reform mandatory spending - mostly entitlements - that makes up almost two-thirds of the federal budget.

On GOP Tax Cuts: They'll take food out of the mouths of children to give tax cuts to the wealthiest.

We ought to pay down the national debt, ... The American people are tired of people who make promises about cutting taxes that they cannot keep.

There's one big difference between me and the others - I won't take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy. I'll use the bulk of the surplus to secure Social Security far into the future to keep our promise to the greatest generation.

I served on the budget committee in the Senate, and I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday when we had a hearing in which Alan Greenspan came and justified increasing spending and cutting taxes, saying that we didn't really need to pay down the debt - outrageous in my view.

Most people don't realize that two-thirds of the federal budget is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Pentagon. The U.S. government is an insurance company with an Army.

We need to have more taxes, not less, and we need the taxes we have, certainly, to provide services - for defense and education and health care. We should not cut money here in order to cut taxes.

I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.

I'd hate to paint with a broad brush, but many Democrats don't feel that we have a crisis in entitlements, and Republicans do.

Medicaid is essentially bankrupt, Medicare is essentially bankrupt, why the heck would we give the federal government another entitlement program to manage?

I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny. Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare.

When George W. Bush entered office, the national debt was $5 trillion. When he left, it was $10 trillion. I think the administration spent too much money.

There are two important things to remember about 'entitlements': They are hugely popular programs for a very good reason, and actual sensible 'reform' would mean improving them, not sacrificing them at the altar of 'fiscal responsibility.'

Social Security has not contributed to the deficit problem.

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