Douglas Alexander Quotes

In coming to the Congress as a new Member and becoming a fellow Blue Dog, we have had an opportunity to share and really spend a great deal of time in examining the challenges that our Nation finds itself in in getting its fiscal house in order.

The right way to deal with a budget problem that was years in the making is by formulating a credible plan to reduce the deficit over time and as the economy is able to withstand the necessary fiscal belt-tightening. That is what President Obama is doing.

The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled.

We're committed to working with Congress to doing what the president said he was always going to do, which is cut the deficit in half over the - over his first term.

The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit. The deficit is the symptom of the disease.

Tonight, I come before you to announce that the federal deficit, once so incomprehensibly large that it had eleven zeroes, will be, simply zero.

Tonight I come before you to announce that the Federal Deficit will be simply zero.

Without deficit reduction, we cannot have sustained economic growth.

We give lip service to the importance of deficit reduction, but Americans oppose every single thing that you might do to reduce the deficit.

Congress must build on the success of the Budget Control Act.

Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.

In my political career, I'd like to see a constitutional balanced budget amendment.

The Tea Party knows that continuing to delay charting a course to spending reform hurts everybody.

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.

Fiscal discipline is a priority in Romania, and we have already proven we are committed and able to make real progress in this area.

Of course we have to address the deficit if we win.

For me, fiscal realism is not a betrayal of Labour values; it is the foundation by which we win the trust of the public.

Well, a deficit reflects an imbalance between spending and revenue, and so narrowing it requires acting on one, the other or both.

When Mr. Obama entered office, he said all the right things about getting Washington spending under control. He even promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Obviously, that didn't happen.

But the debt limit obviously is something that needs to and will be passed. That is not inconsistent with a process and a belief that we have to get significant deficit reduction.

I think where I differ a little bit, we absolutely have to think about the deficit looking down the road. And certainly that's something the president has said that we need to, as the economy recovers, have a plan in place for getting it down.

We're going to have to raise revenues in some form or fashion, and we're going to have to cut spending, including entitlements of all kind, including the military. We all know this. Lets get on with it.

The deficit only became a big problem in the Reagan-Bush years. For 12 years, Republican presidents talked about balancing the budget, but failed to propose one.

While there are no easy solutions to this problem, the Deficit Reduction Act gets us started in the right direction by beginning with the most obvious, commonsense reforms to save taxpayer dollars.

We had a $10 billion budget deficit when we got here in January of 2003. We cut that budget deficit; we did not raise taxes; we came back in '05, and we had an $8 billion surplus. That's how fast it can happen.