Jack Kemp Quotes

I personally do not worship at the alter of a balanced budget.

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy. The left wants to focus on the deficit so they can take us away from the focus on spending as a percentage of the economy.

The American people know that we cannot spend our way to prosperity.

I don't have many litmus tests, but this is one: Any candidate who doesn't understand that we need to balance the budget should not be president of the United States.

We've not had one Republican president in 34 years balance the budget. You can't trust right-wing Republicans with your money. You ought to hire somebody who has balanced a budget. I'm much more conservative with money than George Bush is.

I believe Nebraskans appreciate the fiscal discipline I've brought to state government, balancing the budget without raising taxes and prioritizing education funding.

I am a deficit hawk.

If you could bring to me a majority of people to say that we're going to have $10 of spending cuts for $1 of revenue enhancement, put me in, coach.

Republicans went off track. We were spending too much money.

There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.

You will see the President being very, very tough on spending.

Normally, when politicians talk about 'cutting the budget,' they really mean reducing the amount of increase. Actual spending goes up while the politicians claim to have 'cut the budget.'

The Republican Party once could lay claim to the mantle of being the fiscally responsible, or 'Daddy,' Party.

The best thing to hold down spending is to have a Democratic President and a Republican Congress.

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

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

Although virtually all Republicans campaign on fiscal restraint, how many actually care about it deeply?

With its record spending and deficits, the Obama administration has shown little interest in taking fiscal responsibility. That is a mistake.

Now fiscal responsibility is generally a good thing, and so a centrism mindlessly focused on tweaking legislation away from deficit spending has its uses.

How does one leave Social Security and Medicare untouched, grow defense by more than $50 billion, slash taxes, launch a $1 trillion infrastructure program - and not explode the deficit and national debt?

I think it's essential that we do more than talk about austerity measures and cutting.

In difficult economic times, I'm firmly opposed to austerity.

'Austerity' is a real weasel word because it's an attempt to make something value-based and abstract out of something which, in reality, consists simply of spending cuts.

With control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, Republicans could have used their unified control of government to... balance the budget!

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