Phil Bredesen Quotes

The first order of business is the elimination of the annual deficit.

You can't balance the budget on the backs of nondefense discretionary spending.

I believe very firmly that we can get to balanced budgets without raising taxes and without cutting transfers to the provinces or to individuals.

Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.

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.

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

Cutting budget deficits can never be just an exercise in economics.

I think where I differ a little bit, we absolutely have to think about the deficit looking down the road. And certainly that's something the president has said that we need to, as the economy recovers, have a plan in place for getting it down.

We had a $10 billion budget deficit when we got here in January of 2003. We cut that budget deficit; we did not raise taxes; we came back in '05, and we had an $8 billion surplus. That's how fast it can happen.

We have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. The less we spend, the more jobs we have the potential to create.

The best deficit reduction program is a growing economy.

Taxes are forever; spending cuts are transitory.

Look at what happened in the 1990s: when they balanced the federal budget, it was through growth in the economy and controlling spending.

My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together.

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.

Of course we have to address the deficit if we win.

Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes.

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

Defense spending as a share of the economy dropped significantly during the early 1990s, and that was one of the things, along with other policy changes, that put us back on the path to a balanced budget.

Fiscal policy is not just, or even not even principally, the purview of the president.

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.

Look, I am not worried about Washington cutting too much spending too fast. I mean, the kinds of spending cuts we're talking about just right now are $100 billion out of a $3.7 trillion budget.

Sequestration was not designed to be anyone's ideal method for getting our hands around government spending, and it certainly isn't mine.

The deficit - the U.S. knows our deficit is too large. We are committed to bringing it down. We are bringing it down. The deficit came in for fiscal year '05 at considerably below where it was the prior year.