John Lanchester Quotes

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.

When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.

I think it's essential that we do more than talk about austerity measures and cutting.

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

I've made more cuts than any governor has ever made.

Normally, when politicians talk about 'cutting the budget,' they really mean reducing the amount of increase. Actual spending goes up while the politicians claim to have 'cut the budget.'

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.

Deficits must be cut, yes, but the rush to austerity risks undermining the fragile global recovery.

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.

I'd be a lot more excited about eliminating earmarks if we reduced all of the spending by whatever the earmarks used to be, but nobody's, apparently, going to talk about doing that.

The only way you can raise the debt ceiling is to change the trajectory of spending - that's my personal preference. But I want the Ways and Means Committee to offer up a solution.

Sequestration is leverage that should not be given up easily.

To cut the federal budget without cutting entitlements is like giving up chocolate-chip cookies and then deciding it's OK to eat the ones that don't have any nuts.

Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are.

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

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.

Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well.

Instead of an end to austerity, Labour has made clear that it wants to impose more austerity cuts.

You will see the President being very, very tough on spending.

The more we can do to address fiscal austerity, the better our markets will do, and there is a real political shift to doing that.

The closest thing you ever get to a cut is a decrease in the rate of increase of government spending.

When they talk about belt-tightening in Washington, they are talking about tightening our belts.

As governor, I cut $5 billion in spending.

A lawmaker cannot be pro-sequester while also purporting to be pro-national security or supportive of a strong economy.

When I was speaker in North Carolina, the state was gripped with a deficit, and we made a fundamental policy decision to adopt austerity budgets for four years.