George M. Humphrey Quotes
How does a government reduce expenditures? To be absolutely flat about it, 99 per cent of it is accomplished by putting people out of work. Now that is a tough way to say it, but it is a fact.
George M. Humphrey, 1890-1970, U. S. Treasury Secretary (Republican), Speech, Washington Conference of Governors, April 1954
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In the non-defense side of the budget a very large proportion of the budget is for entitlements like Social Security and Mediacre which are obligations that must be paid. The remainder, the smaller part is everything else--funding the cabinet departments, all the medical and sdcientific research, all the federal aid to public dchools and police departments, all the welfare, foodstamp and other programs for the poor, the costs of the Federal COurt System, the White House, the Congress, the State Department, foreign aid, Homeland security, weatehr forcasting, all the agricultural programs, and viirtually everything the governmetn does. In 2017 President Donals Trump submitted a budget to COngress that increased defense spending by a fulll 10 percent, and gave a hugh tax cut for the wealthy and the corporations. To balance the budget, he propsoed eliminateing man of the existing progrms like "Meals on Wheels" which brings at least 1 hot meal a day to homebound poor eldertly people, and a host of other critical programs. He had no previous experience with a government budget which was thoudands of times larger and more complex than any budget he had ever seen. So many in Congress, in both partiesd, were very critical of the budget and Congress then started to create its own buget. This quote expressed the heart of the problem.
This position angered the extreme conservatives and the extreme liberals who both opposed him in 2012. However, the majority of the state supported him and he was elected on this middle of the road platform with most of the activists against him.
Although the Professor was often right about this technique, at the time he made this statement, the Clinton administration was actually cutting spending and using much of the revenue to pay for the deficit—just the opposite of what the Professor was worried about. It was successful and the deficit was eliminated and surpluses were projected. However the succeeding administration more closely followed the professor’s pattern and increased spending enormously for serious needs, but also cut taxes, so that we went during the Bush administration from the largest projected surplus in American history to the greatest deficit in American history.
In 1964 the treasury secretary asked the president how to sell the proposed budget to Congress:
After the Stock Market crash of 1929, Republican politicians promised "recovery is right around the corner." But La Guardia disagreed:
In 1775 England had amassed a large national debt and was looking to the American colonies as one source of revenue for debt reduction.
1st Viscount Snowden
George Magoffin Humphrey was an American lawyer, businessman and banker. He served as the United States Secretary of the Treasury for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
