Barack Obama Quotes

The fact is, almost every year since the founding of these United States, our government has lived beyond its means.

Obama did inherit a deficit when he came into office. Why this fact justifies racking up vastly more debt and bigger deficits is a logical mystery.

I think at the end of the day we have to raise the debt ceiling, because America pays its bills.

The Republicans in the House and the Bush administration are bankrupting this country.

I've criticized Republicans for their lack of fiscal discipline when they controlled Congress before 2007. However, that is no excuse to just continue with more of the same or, as the case is now, to make it worse. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's budget, we will double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10.

For the last 4 years, our Federal Government has produced the four biggest deficits in history, and the estimated 2006 deficit of $423 billion is projected to be the largest of all.

To be fair, Republicans are not blameless. The deficit began to spiral out of control on President Bush's watch.

China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever…. The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation.

Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt

The debt ceiling serves no useful purpose.

I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

America is the brokest country in history. We owe more money than anyone has ever owed anyone. And Obama and Reid say relax, that's no reason not to spend more - because the world hasn't yet concluded we have no intention of paying it back. When they do, the dollar will collapse.

If the US Government was a family—they would be making $58,000 a year, spending $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand.

America's government has to get the public investments right.

How does the richest country in the history of the world fail to pay its bills?

The money has to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend that money better than the private sector will spend it.

It's a sad day in America when foreign governments with deep pockets have more influence in our own country than our great citizens.

When America's creditors consider our behavior they see total fiscal irresponsibility. They see a deluded country that acts as if it is a privilege for foreigners to lend to it, and a deluded country that believes that foreigners will continue to accumulate US debt until the end of time. The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt.

The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.

If we could manage our own finances the way the Congress does the nation's, we'd all be living in high cotton and eating high on the hog.

The American people aren't overtaxed. The government in Washington is overfed. The main difference between ourselves and the other side is: we see an America where every day is the Fourth of July. They see an America where every day is April 15.

Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby, the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars. Taxpayers will be on the hook for spending that will stimulate the debt, stimulate the growth of government, but will do little to stimulate jobs or the economy.

Government jobs are not an addition to the country's payroll; they are an increase in the nation's payload.

Today government touches everything in America and harms almost everything it touches. Federal, state, and local governments together spend 42 out of every 100 dollars we earn. Those who do the taxing and spending have long since ceased to work for the people as a whole. Rather, they work for themselves and for their clients-the education industry, the welfare culture, public-employee unions, etc.

I would use the debt limit. I don't want to say - I want to be unpredictable, because, you know, we need unpredictability. Everything is so predictable with our country.