Thomas Jefferson Quotes

It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Government economically administered.

Let us have the courage to stop borrowing to meet continuing deficits. Revenues must cover expenditures by one means or another. Any government, like any family, can, for a year, spend a little more than it earns. But you know and I know that a continuation of the habit means the poor house.

The American people need to know that money is being used effectively because frankly, the nation can't afford careless spending, no matter how well-intentioned.

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.

It is necessary to watch people in Washington all the time to keep them from unnecessary expenditure of money.

The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until someone is asked to pay the bill.

Government ... simply has no bottom line.

I do not pretend to step out of my own sphere and to control the internal management of other departments, but it seems to me that as Secretary of the Treasury, I may ask, that, while peace continues, the aggregate of the expenditure of those departments be kept within bounds such as will preserve the equilibrium between the national revenue and expenditure without recurrence to loans.

Like Ike [President Eisenhower] did. Talk economy and then spend away.

May the debt of the United States be discharged with speed and punctuality; and let not the people be deceived, by having the funds, established for that purpose, put to other uses.

What would be better is to discipline our lawmakers in Sacramento so that they do not spend more money than they have.

Government does not have basic business sense.

Congress is not an ATM

As quickly as you start spending Federal money in large amounts, it looks like free money.

Every public official concerned with administering public funds owes it to all our citizens to be prepared at any time to account to the last penny of the public money placed in his hands.

I'm gonna watch the taxpayers' money like I was elected to do.

I think one thing that Montanans all agree on, whether you're Republican or Democrat, is they want money spent appropriately.

As Speaker of the North Carolina House, I've proven I'm a problem-solver, balancing budgets, cutting wasteful spending, and providing teachers with historic pay raises.

If there is wasteful spending, I will not support it.

When people talk about conservative government, that's it in a nutshell. We're using taxpayers' money like we would use our own. We're holding in the reins during good times so we're prepared during bad times.

I believe the only measure of government response shouldn't be how much we spend on a situation, but rather how well we spend.

Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned; it was - by a taxpayer.

I don't mind the government accruing debts as long as every dollar is spent effectively with a high return. That works out fine. If you accumulate debts and waste your money, that's, of course, a disaster.

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

We need to replace hyperbole with a reasonable, informed discussion about how to reinvent the federal budget with more transparency and better accountability.