Fiscal Challenge Quotes

A debt is just as hard for a Government to pay as it is for an individual. No debt ever comes due at a good time. Borrowing is the only thing that seems handy all the time.

Americans tend not to be too enthusiastic about having their taxes raised again....But if the American people aren't going to accept it, if the politicians don't have the courage to raise taxes, what are we facing down the road?

Our debt is out of control. What was a fiscal challenge is now a fiscal crisis. We cannot deny it; instead we must, as Americans, confront it responsibly. And that is exactly what Republicans pledge to do.

I went dead broke - twice! - trying to get Gas Monkey up and going. And when I say broke, I mean sleeping on my sister's couch and can't pay-the-rent type broke.

I think that retiring the baby boomers is going to be one of the great challenges in America, that you cannot make fiscal sense out of the future of our children without taking on entitlements.

But obviously, we're looking for all good ideas to help deal with our long-term debt problem. This is something that is going to affect our economy. It affects our kids. And we need to deal with it.

We've got all these politicians talking about better health care and what all, but believe me, we're not going to have the money to take care of sick people.. or anyone else as far as I'm concerned.. if we don't fix our energy problem right now. I've got an idea what to do. It might not be a perfect idea, but hell, none of my best ideas have been perfect.

At best, in such depression times, monetary policy is a feeble reed on which to lean.

I said we are going to balance an $11 billion budget deficit in a $29 billion budget, so by percentage, the largest budget deficit in America, by percentage, larger than California, larger than New York, larger than Illinois. And we're going to balance that without raising taxes on the people of the state of New Jersey.

The risk is that as we come out of this recession, we'll have so much debt to finance, we'll either have to have inflation or very high interest rates to continue to borrow the money, or both. That's a risk.