Jay Carney Quotes

We've got to start worrying about America. And if we don't start dealing with the debt we have and the deficit spending we have in Washington, politics doesn't matter, because the American people do realize that they have to balance their budgets.

I am specifically concerned about the idea that the legislative process is one that gets characterized the way it is as the 'fiscal cliff.' At the end of the day, the United States is the biggest economy in the world, and the dollar is the reserve currency in the world. I think it behooves us to act in a much more responsible way.

It is simply science fiction fantasy to say that, if you do not raise the debt ceiling, that everything is going to collapse.

We can't continue to kick the can when it comes to the fiscal state of this country.

The more we can do to address fiscal austerity, the better our markets will do, and there is a real political shift to doing that.

I don't see why anybody's playing chicken with the debt ceiling.

When President Bush left office, the deficit was approximately $500 billion. It is now approximately now $1.5 trillion. In other words, President Obama has essentially tripled the deficit.

President Obama has contempt for real money.

I'm not going to raise the debt ceiling.

What our Republican friends are doing, if we look at what they do and not what they say, they have decided that the most important thing in this country is to increase payments for interest on the national debt.

There's no debt limit in the Constitution.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.

We're all concerned about the budget. We're all concerned about what's happening financially in our country. There's no question about it. Congress is working day and night. In fact, every time I go home the lights are on at the top of the Capitol.

From the Left comes the proposition that, given the slow economy, we should defer attending to the problem of mounting obligations - and the truly delusional idea that growing federal debt doesn't matter because we owe most of it to ourselves.

But despite historic levels of obstruction, President Obama was able to bring the economy back from the verge of a second Great Depression.

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.

When you're the president of the United States and you know that the biggest issue facing you is this cliff that we're about ready to head over if we don't get this spending and debt situation under control, it's very irresponsible not to take the action that is necessary to fix the problem.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

And it's important to remember we are all responsible - or certainly the elected members in Washington of both parties are responsible for making decisions and choices to ensure that the economy grows and jobs are created.

Is bankrupting this great country the top priority of this administration?

If anybody ran a business like that they would be out of business quickly, and Barack Obama's leadership is driving this business, the United States of America, toward a fiscal cliff.

There was no avoiding the fact that we were going to hit our debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling at some point has to be raised. I don't think there's anybody that questions the fact that if we ended up getting in a situation where the U.S. government was sending out IOUs like the state of California did at one point, that ends up creating quite a brand problem for our country.

The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.

I certainly don't want our nation to go into default, but at the same time, I'm very concerned about our ongoing debt problem.