Nick Clegg Quotes

All the states are required, either by constitution or by statute, to have balanced budgets - they're not able to print money. So they have to focus on establishing priorities.

What's really important to me is that we have fiscally responsible balanced budgets.

Remarkably, there are leaders in Washington who don't understand why it's so important for us to have a budget.

When Gordon Brown becomes prime minister, the balance sheet that reflects his economic stewardship could look very sickly indeed. He could become Labour's biggest liability, not its most marketable asset.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown committed to John Major's spending envelopes in 1997. No-one said that Tony Blair and John Major were identical. This happens quite often that parties actually, despite all the sound and fury, agree on the overall need to make sure that we live within our means as a country.

Our system of keeping the federal government's books is a monument to the creativity of mankind ... We've cut government spending for 15 years in a row, and yet have spent more money in each of those years.

Let us act with our eyes open. We are going to have a deficit next fiscal year and the year after that.

The Federal Government has no fiscal policy, for the tail of political expediency has long wagged the dog of prudent policy in Washington.

We can’t just run the government on political rhetoric and ideology.

Congress must build on the success of the Budget Control Act.

The people of Illinois sent me to Springfield to end the era of unbalanced budgets and runaway debt.

I never defended the Bush administration's spending.

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

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

The truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one.

It is time for us to insist that we are accountable for the money that we are spending.

The financial report makes it very clear that if we got into honest budgeting today, that in fact we would find ourselves with a much larger deficit than we have today.

Of course we have to address the deficit if we win.

Cutting budget deficits can never be just an exercise in economics.

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.'

Bush has never sent over a balanced budget.

In coming to the Congress as a new Member and becoming a fellow Blue Dog, we have had an opportunity to share and really spend a great deal of time in examining the challenges that our Nation finds itself in in getting its fiscal house in order.

I do think our challenge is to balance credibility and a clear message about how we would reduce the deficit with boldness about the choices that we put before the public.

States, virtually all of them, have a constitutional requirement to operate on a balanced budget.

If you don't get spending under control, eventually you're going to have a big tax increase.