Jim Jeffords Quotes

As a fiscal conservative, I believe one of the most important roles the federal government can play in assuring that our economy remains strong is to keep our fiscal house in order.

I think the government lost control over fiscal policy in UPA-2. But it is possible to suggest that the momentum of the populism of UPA-1 did the damage when the economy slowed down, but government spending could not.

This country doesn't have a revenue problem - it has a spending problem.

We are worried about the size of the deficit, which is why the president is pleased that the House and Senate have followed his lead in cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.

I was the chairman of the House Budget Committee and one of the chief architects the last time we balanced a budget, and it was the first time we had done it since man walked on the moon. We had a $5 trillion surplus and we cut taxes.

There is a very serious fiscal-policy question of, 'Are we running our overall fiscal policy such that we as a government can pay our bills?'

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.

We need to get rid of the debt ceiling law. It's anachronistic and it's a problem.

If you ask people do you think that government should spend less money than what it takes in, most people agree with that.

Governments enjoying surpluses have a very strong temptation to splash money around, and while tax cuts are always appealing, cutting taxes at the top of a boom runs the real risk of creating a structural deficit when the boom subsides.

Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well.

In the case of the Democrats' 2009 budget request, the statement of need could not have been articulated any clearer: We need more spending, historic new tax hikes, and greater control over the way American families live their lives.

As long as we're focused on spending, there are only two ways to do that: One is spend less, and Democrats have no solutions for that. Or we have pro-growth policies that make the economy grow so the dead-weight cost of government becomes a smaller percentage of the economy and therefore less expensive.

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

While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious evil.

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.

As always, it would be important to ensure that any fiscal policy changes did not compromise long-run fiscal sustainability.

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?

Getting the budget balanced, regulatory reform, tax reform - I think these lead to economic growth.

Fiscal policy is a very important part of the tool kit for policy makers.

Government needs to get out of the way, focus more on affordability, manage taxes properly so we get the services we expect.

You can't have it both ways. You can't tell me that you're taxed enough already, and that you want constitutional government and then in the next breath say, 'Bring me home some bacon.' The pig has been picked clean.

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.

We can have tax cuts, but when we have tax cuts and do not have a surplus, the amount of the tax cut goes straight to the bottom line, adds to the deficit, and the deficit adds to the national debt, and sooner or later, the debt has to be paid.

You remember had this gigantic clock in the arena showing the size of the national debt. And Paul told America, if you elect Republicans, we can fix that. But, if Paul Ryan was being honest, he would've pointed to the debt clock and said, we built that.