Jason Chaffetz Quotes

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.

People question me all the time about my experience. They question my experience in politics, and the first thing I always tell them is yes, I have no experience raising taxes over and over. I have no experience increasing the debt in a state.

You've got to either say you're going to cut taxes and find some spending cuts. I think we ought to reform long-term entitlement spending in the country, but you can't out of one side of your mouth say, 'Yes, we're for tax cuts, we're for spending discipline, and we're for bringing down the debt.'

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.

The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.

To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget. You don't take more from the private sector and grow government with it. And that's exactly what Obama has in mind with this expiration of Bush tax cuts proposal of his.

If we didn't propose these reforms, we would not have proposed a budget that got the debt under control.

The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit. The deficit is the symptom of the disease.

A long term tax cut is not a tax cut at all unless it is accompanied by a spending cut.

I've made a commitment that any tax increase, I'm going to veto. It's the worst thing we could do. We have an amount of money to spend. That's it.

A tax cut would most certainly be my first choice rather than an increase in federal spending. Those who advocate that fail to see that spending not only continues in subsequent years, but it grows and grows.

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

I think America is strong enough to fix the problems, grace and honor to D.C. I think energy independence and control spending. We have to go to a balanced budget. Quite frankly, as far as our debt goes, I don't think you can tax your way out of it. I think people are taxed enough.

The polls are with us on this. They say the American people, more than anything, want to see spending cuts rather than tax increases.

It's going to be true that anything that reduces the federal deficit will have somebody unhappy.

I think I should pay more taxes... but everything they take from me should go to reduce the debt.

GOP candidates routinely sign a pledge never, ever to raise taxes. Democratic candidates aren't even asked to sign a parallel pledge never, ever to cut entitlements.

When I became mayor of New York City, I had a $2.4 billion deficit. And everybody wanted me to raise taxes. I said, 'If I raise taxes, I'll drive people out of New York City, and then I'll be raising taxes again.' So what I did was I cut expenses by 15 percent.

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.

If you ask people do you think that government should spend less money than what it takes in, most people agree with that.

First of all, I don't like to speak about austerity. I'd prefer to speak of fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline, in the end, amounts to austerity if it is not accompanied by other policies.

My opponent Senator Menendez and his colleagues are pursuing what I consider a Jon Corzine economic policy. Higher taxes, more spending, more debt.

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.

Tax increases slow economic growth. Why would you raise taxes? We need to reform spending, the tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities can never be funded by tax increases, that can only be fixed by reducing spending.

President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.