James Madison Quotes

Like working families all across the state, we must find a way to make government live within its means.

The only way to meet the situation [the financial crisis] is spend less money and to run the City of New York within the limits of our resources. Unless you do this, gentlemen, you will have a difficult problem confronting you by the end of this year and the taxpayers of 1922 and the years thereafter will have to pay the price of our present lack of prudence or our unwillingness to economize at the proper time.

Having billions of dollars immediately available to plug budget holes without raising taxes is very appealing. And to the delight of Wall Street investors, state and local governments often fail to ask the important questions or consider the long-term impact.

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.

They're all tied together: taxes, Medicare, Social Security, and the debt. We've got to have a setting of priorities, and looking at it - at each of them as disconnected, I think, doesn't properly address these major challenges.

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.

And I just think that we're at a point in our economic life here in our state - and - and, candidly, across the country, where increased taxes is just the wrong way to go. The people of our state are not convinced that state government, county government, local government has done all they can with the money we already give them, rather than the money that we have...

For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.

We Hoosiers hold to some quaint notions. Some might say we 'cling' to them, though not out of fear or ignorance. We believe in paying our bills. We have kept our state in the black throughout the recent unpleasantness, while cutting rather than raising taxes, by practicing an old tribal ritual - we spend less money than we take in.

The budget is tight, and that is exactly where we want it to be and where we need it to be.

We're going to have to control the spending of government.

There is a very serious fiscal-policy question of, 'Are we running our overall fiscal policy such that we as a government can pay our bills?'

While our nation faces many challenges that must be met regarding homeland security and our military readiness, it is imperative that we live within our means and wisely spend taxpayer dollars.

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.

We can't continue to spend where there isn't any money.

You spend a billion here and a billion there. Sooner of later it adds up to real money.

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.

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of public moneys.

As a general rule, the demands of the current year, especially in time of peace, should be provided for by the revenues of that year.

The deficit had become a symbol of our inability to control and manage the cost of government.

Back home in Maine people tend to think that there should be a balance between money coming in and money going out in their own lives, in their businesses and the Federal government.

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 best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.

Congress is not an ATM