Calvin Coolidge Quotes

There's no reason to raise taxes. Taxes should be lower... The problem we have is that government spends too much, not that taxes are too low.

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.

People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income.

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?'

The Republican name used to be synonymous with limiting the size and scope of government, and we need to re-establish that reputation. We must work to eliminate government waste, make certain taxpayer dollars go to meaningful programs, and leave resources directly with the people.

Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt 'unpatriotic' - serious talk from what looked to be a serious reformer. Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.

The best way for the Government to maintain its credit is to pay as it goes-not by resorting to loans, but by keeping out of debt-through an adequate income secured by a system of taxation, external or internal, or both.

Governments are necessarily continuing concerns. They have to keep going in good times and in bad. They therefore need a wide margin of safety. If taxes and debt are made all the people can bear when times are good, there will be certain disaster when times are bad.

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.

Either we pay the government's bills, or we leave them for our kids to pay. It's that simple.

The federal government cannot maintain a budget surplus any more than an alcoholic can leave a fresh bottle of whiskey untouched in the cupboard.

When the Republican Party is no longer the party of fiscal conservatism then clearly I would argue that we've lost our way.

I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared

Yes, deficits are a problem. I've been saying so for more than a quarter of a century now. But the problem is not the size of the deficit, it's the size of government's claim on our economy.

We owe more money than any Nation in the World, and we are LOWERING TAXES. When is the time to pay off a debt if it is not when you are doing well? You let a Politician return home from Washington and announce, 'Boys we lowered your taxes. We had to borrow the money to do it, but we did it.' Say, they would elect him for life.

No honest hardworking official likes to see good money disappearing into the hands of the Treasury at the end of the financial year.

If we could manage our own finances the way the Congress does the nation's, we'd all be living in high cotton and eating high on the hog.

When the fountains of government [borrowing] abundance began to dry up, when through lack of funds and the impossibility of negotiating fresh loans the state was forced to check the extension of bureaucracy and to put a stop to public works, then and then only did the Italians realize what it meant to have allowed themselves to be made one of the most heavily taxed nations in the world.

Governments don't reduce deficits by raising taxes on the people; governments reduce deficits by controlling spending and stimulating new wealth.

We can meet the obligations of Social security and Medicare. If we stay on the path that your party has us on, we'll be in a mountain range of debt and we're gonna face hard choices.

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.

I said that this would be a Budget based on prudence for a purpose and that guides us also in our approach to public spending.

For three long years I have been going up and down this country preaching that government . . . costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching.

The challenge for any government is how do you do two things at the same time. How do you put money forward for things like the payroll tax holiday, for things like getting a jump-start on infrastructure, for building schools, and make the decisions for long-term deficit reduction.

Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.