Steny Hoyer Quotes
Debt is not caused by spending, it is caused by buying things that you don't pay for. Or, it's caused by cutting revenues that you don't offset ... by cuts in spending.
Hoyer, Steny. "Pen and Pad Briefing." Office of the Democratic Whip, 19 July 2011, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. Press briefing.
Commenting on the practice of making loans to repay old loans:
This is a particularly interesting historical quotation. It shows that when FDR was first elected, he had a classic view of deficit spending. However, above all, Roosevelt was a pragmatist and not an ideologue. Faced with the Great Depression that was not getting much better, Roosevelt turned around, changed his mind and policy about deficits and embarked on the “pump priming” approach of injecting substantial Federal spending into the economy and accepting the deficits in order to improve the situation which had been stagnant. FDR’s new policy staved off total disaster, but few remember that his great success was a total reversal of his earlier views.
Almost every major corporation that is growing must borrow money to finance the growth. There is a great temptation to do this continuously, as if all works out the borrowed money is paid back and the nation has grown. However, not every investment succeeds, and when they do, few nations will take the growth and save it for a future date when a national investment does not work out as well as hoped. Gradually national debt as a proportion of the economy gets larger and larger and it makes mew investments more and more difficult to succeed because of the higher rates of interest that must be paid. Every modern country must find a balance. Those that do not can have a financial disaster such as Greece in the early part of the 21st century.
Steny Hamilton Hoyer is an American politician and attorney serving as U.S. Representative for Maryland's 5th congressional district since 1981 and as House Majority Leader since 2019. A Democrat, he was first elected in a special election on May 19, 1981, and is currently serving in his 20th term. The district includes a large swath of rural and suburban territory southeast of Washington, D.C. Hoyer is the dean of the Maryland Congressional delegation and the most senior Democrat in the House.
