James Madison Quotes

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.

My conviction of the necessity of further legislative provisions for the safe-keeping and disbursement of the public moneys and my opinion in regard to the measures best adapted to the accomplishment of those objects have been already submitted to you.

The best legislator is the one who votes for all appropriations and against all taxes.

The national budget is perhaps the most important and least understood documents in Washington.

Economy in government does not mean spending little ... It means spending what you have and spending it well.

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my first responsibility is to the taxpayer.

In the private sector we budget for rainy days or offset unexpected expenditures with spending cuts and the same principles should apply to Congress.

There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence.

I said that this would be a Budget based on prudence for a purpose and that guides us also in our approach to public spending.

For as long as I can remember the slogan has been ... the federal government ought to behave more like families, because families balance their budgets. It turns out that families looked around and said, "You know what? Let's behave more like the government!"

Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.

We will never get anywhere with our finances till we pass a law saying...every time we appropriate something, we...pass another bill...stating where the money is coming from.

Let's pass a bill to cover the moon with yogurt that will cost $5 trillion today. And then let's pass a bill the next day to cancel that bill. We could save $5 trillion.

What would you think of a person who earned $24,000 a year but spent $35,000? Suppose on top of that, he was already $170,000 in debt. You'd tell him to get his act together - stop spending so much or he'd destroy his family, impoverish his kids and wreck their future. Of course, no individual could live so irresponsibly for long. But tack on eight more zeroes to that budget and you have the checkbook for our out-of-control, big-spending federal government.

Today we care about budgets more than anything. Our American future hangs on the ability of government to cut budget.

I don't know if for sure in absolute terms if Jim Flaherty is the best Finance Minster in the world, but I am sure that he is the best Finance Minster per inch in the world.

The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out of the pockets of some people for the benefit of others.

I lowered taxes in New York. I reduced the size of government in New York. I took a $2.4 billion deficit and turned it into a $3.2 billion surplus. And I reduced taxes over 23 times or 23 times.

Posterity does not pay off anything of the national debt. Each administration adds to the debt left to it, and the promise of liquidation implied in every bond issue is a false promise.

We don't have a tax revenue problem in Washington, we have a spending problem in Washington.

The federal government cannot maintain a budget surplus any more than an alcoholic can leave a fresh bottle of whiskey untouched in the cupboard.

I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues in this campaign. In my opinion it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business.

I am interested in tax policy that raises money because I don't like being in debt.

The number one priority now is reducing the deficit that they [Labour] left us - the biggest deficit since the Second World War.

Today I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office.