Michael Steele Quotes

I don't have more money. I won't have more money than any of the candidates, even the Republican candidates. We know that already. But we are building this campaign team like I would build a business. And that is, we are building it so far with no debt.

The new rule of thumb is that 80% of a president's time must be spent in raising funds for their schools.

You may think my business is to make appropriations, but it is not. It is to prevent their being made.

We have to talk about the way we finance campaigns.

You have a burden going into any campaign when you're raising money to fund that effort because there's always a desire to spend more money than you have.

Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.

Every family in America knows they have to do a budget. Every small business in America knows they have to do a budget. Every local government, every state, knows they have to do a budget.

If I were running a campaign, I'd urge taking the mountain of money reportedly squandered on pizza, coffee and bagels and spending it more wisely - on a talented young comedy writer.

In the not-for-profit world, there can be wastefulness because there's not the desperate urgency of when you're on a clock.

We design our own programmes; we take leadership. Of course the donors come in to support us, to complement our efforts. Our responsibility to the donors is about accountability: about how we use that money. If somebody gives you his money, definitely he will be interested in knowing how you spend the money.

Spare no expense to save money on this one.

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.'

Budgets are blueprints and priorities.

I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it's time America was run like a business.

At a time when we're having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.

I had learned many years ago in private business never to take responsibility without adequate authority; and the new Secretary of Defense, as budgets were sharply cut, quickly found that out.

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.

At a time of tight budgets, unless something is really broken and not working, they [his congressional colleagues] just don't get excited about it.

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.

Budget drives everything that we do.

Actively search for spending bills that I can veto as a sign of … financial stewardship.

Fundraising is a long and distracting process, and by the end of it, all you want to do is go back to building the product that you're working on.

To a certain extent, I have to be the president's bad cop from time to time. I have to look people in the eye and tell them, 'No, we don't have enough money for that.' That is not a very popular thing to do in Washington.

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions to hold the line on spending.

The secret to fundraising comes down to three magic words: before, more, and strategic.