Amity Shlaes Quotes

I think it's important that people know what raising the debt ceiling is. It's Congress giving permission to the federal government to borrow more money that we don't have, and we borrow it for the purpose of spending it.

If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.

Fiscal responsibility and government reform are going to be good themes for governing, well at any time, but particularly coming out of a recovery.

Disillusionment can come as fast as a gust, but building faith that the government won't inflate again is like building a new sailboat, a project of years.

The best deficit reduction program is a growing economy.

Trusting the government with money creation is like trusting a drunk with a whiskey factory.

Whatever the economy needs to maintain itself, the government will do it.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

We are angry about paying the highest income taxes and property taxes in the nation and getting less and less for it. We are angry about our incompetent, dysfunctional government that pays no attention to the desires of the people. We are angry about the cesspool of corruption and conflicts of interests and self-dealing that is Albany.

Congress seems to want to cure every ill known to man except unconstitutional government and high taxes.

If Congress wanted to intervene with the Federal Reserve, well, we created the Federal Reserve. We could uncreate it. But would you want Congress regulating the money supply? We'd have drowned in inflation, or gone bankrupt, decades ago.

The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy. It borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.

The foundations of a strong economy don't rest alone on the decisions of Chancellors or the spending programmes of government.

I've got a chart here that shows our debt-to-GDP ratio. And while we did run deficits in the past, we now number our debt in trillions rather than in billions. And I think that represents a long-term danger, especially to the, the American dream.

In Congress, I was a relentless advocate for fiscal responsibility.

Who controls the issuance of money controls the government!

The Government has to stop borrowing as much money; if we don't, quite frankly New Zealand will be downgraded and interest rates will go up for all New Zealanders.

I have spoken about deficits, and I think deficits are important because they address broad economic and financial stability. We need to talk about that.

When I work with countries struggling to pay for budgets or finance trade deficits, I reflect on how Americans do not spend a moment considering the unique advantages of being able to issue bonds and print money freely.

Europe is trying to get its fiscal house in order.

I mean, I'm a conservative. I believe that, you know, if you borrow too much, you just build up debts for your children to pay off. You put pressure on interest rates. You put at risk your economy. That's the case in Britain. We're not a reserve currency, so we need to get on and deal with this issue.

With our national savings rate well below one-percent, it is imperative that the government embrace innovative and cost-effective means of boosting personal savings.

Obviously, there has to be a profound change in direction. Otherwise, interest on the national debt will start eating up virtually every penny that we have.

If the U.S. Government was a company, the deficit would be $5 trillion because they would have to account by general accepted accounting principles. But actually they encourage government spending, reckless government spending, because the government can issue Treasury bills at extremely low interest rates.

The connection which formerly existed between the Government and banks was in reality injurious to both, as well as to the general interests of the community at large.