Barack Obama Quotes

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that's one of the things that he's going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

We still have a major problem in debt with America that we have to find efficiencies in government to get us back to a balanced budget.

If we reach the debt ceiling, we don't have to default. Getting to that point just won't allow us to reach new debt.

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.

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

I think it's absolutely clear that the fiscal path we are on is not sustainable, and for me, the best analogy is these deficits are like a cancer, and over time they will destroy the country from within.

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.

The debt ceiling serves no useful purpose.

I believe, as a matter of principle, that the debt is a problem that must be addressed sooner rather than later. I also know that fundamental changes are needed in the way Washington spends and taxes if we truly want a healthy economy. This must include changing our government's long-term fiscal path, which is unsustainable.

I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That's one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we'll able to pay our bills down the road.

I'm not going to raise the debt ceiling.

The biggest change we have to tackle that's out there is that we're digging the hole deeper and deeper and spending is totally out of control. And that's something that, quite frankly, is affecting future generations. You're giving a lot of debt to them and you can't keep doing it. It's not helping anybody.

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.

The American people reject the idea of giving Washington a blank check to increase the debt limit.

Sound public finances are the essential foundation on which to construct a better-balanced economy from the wreckage of Labour's boom and bust. But it is economic growth that will create the jobs and the prosperity for the future and enable us to pay down Labour's debt.

The U.S. has a law on the books called the debt limit, but the name is misleading. The debt limit started in 1917 for the purpose of facilitating more national debt, not reducing it. It still serves that purpose. It's unconnected to spending, hurts our credit rating and has been an abject failure at limiting debt.

There are a lot of anachronisms in Washington, but the need to periodically raise the debt limit by Congressional vote is certainly one of them.

We have to reduce the burden placed on our economy by years of deficits and debt.

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.

The American people want a balanced budget. They want Congress to stop this barbaric practice of perpetual deficit spending. It really, if you think about it, is a form of taxation without representation. We fought a war over that issue and we won that war.

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.

But the debt limit obviously is something that needs to and will be passed. That is not inconsistent with a process and a belief that we have to get significant deficit reduction.

The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled.

Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.

When President Obama was in the Senate, when he was a U.S. senator, he voted against raising the debt ceiling. And he said it was a lack of leadership that had brought us to this point.