Charles Vest Quotes

People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income.

The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy. It borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.

The government can access these funds but only following approval by the parliament to support our budget requirements and investments in infrastructure development, education, public health, and so on.

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.

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.

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.

Let us act with our eyes open. We are going to have a deficit next fiscal year and the year after that.

Government can’t work if lawmakers don’t give Government agencies the funds they need to do their work.

If taxpayer money were limitless, we wouldn't need a budget at all.

What's really important to me is that we have fiscally responsible balanced budgets.

Domestic discretionary spending on education and health care and the environment has been growing at 2 to 3 percent a year. He says we have to rein it in, but he ignores the spending category that is the big spike in the budget.

Now, people when I say that look at me and say, 'What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?'. The answer is yes, that's what I'm telling you.

It's all right to agree or disagree on the balanced budget amendment. It's all right to talk about how we're going to appropriate.

In Michigan, a liberal democrat raised taxes and kept their government programs at the same level. And guess what? Their economy continued into the toilet, it continued down.

Just like families must live within their budgets, the Federal Government must live within its means. We have passed appropriations bills that have been fiscally responsible while recognizing our national priorities.

We are worried about the size of the deficit, which is why the president is pleased that the House and Senate have followed his lead in cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.

I don't think you expand entitlements when so many people are dependent on government and when the money the federal government is offering is going to be taken away from you after just a couple of years.

Unlike the federal government, most states don't have the option of running a deficit.

If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.

Memo to Congress: America's problem is not that government is too small. It's the spending, stupid!

I often quote Ronald Reagan, who is pretty close to my favorite President ever, I will have to say that, but one of my favorite remarks he ever made was that when you look at Federal programs, there is nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal Government program.

The total station economy is about $800 million dollars a year, and about $90 million comes from the government. In the long run, we would be better off without federal funding.

I have a record as governor. I have a record of cutting spending. And I talked yesterday not only about we ought to cut spending, I talked about how we've cut spending in Mississippi and how if you did the same things in the federal government, you would save tens of billions of dollars a year.

But if they want to really think about the fiscal future of this country, then think about how we have moved from hundreds of billions of surpluses to hundreds of billions of deficits.