Phil Gingrey Quotes

I think it's important that people know what raising the debt ceiling is. It's Congress giving permission to the federal government to borrow more money that we don't have, and we borrow it for the purpose of spending it.

Not raising the debt ceiling is not an automatic trigger for a default.

We have to deal with the nation's debt.

America's fiscal future is frightening.

The Obama administration's large and sustained increases in debt raise the specter of another financial crisis and large future tax increases, further chilling business investment and job creation.

I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

The debt they ran up in the first year of the Obama administration is bigger than the last four years of the Bush combined.

Well, I think what we need to remember is that budget deficits can impede economic activity.

I know that my Republican colleagues are as ashamed as I am that the United States is forced to borrow over $1 trillion from foreign nations to pay for our national priorities like reconstruction of the gulf coast and the war in Iraq.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

Without growth we can't pay down our debt, and without growth there's no money for welfare.

I have spoken about deficits, and I think deficits are important because they address broad economic and financial stability. We need to talk about that.

Have you noticed the debt is exploding? And it's not all because of Medicare.

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?'

There is a limit to how much the United States Treasury can borrow.

As a matter of fact, if you do not take into account, as Congressman Ross just stated, the Social Security surplus, our fiscal deficit, ladies and gentlemen, is over $700 billion today.

A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.

The problem is that the U.S. government is the biggest debtor in the world, and those depending on it to take care of them will only become poorer.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have left us with $19 trillion in debt.

America is not better off than it was $1.8 trillion dollars ago.

We borrowed money to fight the Revolutionary War, and so there was a debt owed. We paid it. If we have done that for 235 years, if we have done it ever since this country has existed, we can do it again.

Social Security is legally prohibited from contributing to the deficit. It cannot use debt to pay out benefits.

We should, as a country, be very concerned about our borrowing cost.

I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this [the national debt].

I served on the budget committee in the Senate, and I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday when we had a hearing in which Alan Greenspan came and justified increasing spending and cutting taxes, saying that we didn't really need to pay down the debt - outrageous in my view.