Antonis Samaras Quotes

Austerity need not be Europe's fate.

Political leaders cannot survive as advocates of near-permanent austerity on the basis of directives imposed from abroad.

In difficult economic times, I'm firmly opposed to austerity.

The insane pursuit of the holy grail of a balanced budget in the end is going to drive the economy into a depression.

In the past, proactive fiscal polices almost always meant just more investment and an increase in the fiscal deficit.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn't dramatic.

First of all, I don't like to speak about austerity. I'd prefer to speak of fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline, in the end, amounts to austerity if it is not accompanied by other policies.

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea.

During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator.

Gradual fiscal consolidation may also be stimulative in the short run.

In the middle of a recession no tax increase is justified because it kills jobs, and any tax increase is a job-killing measure and should be defeated.

I'd be happy to have regular face-to-face meetings at Downing Street with David Cameron to argue the case for alternative economic policies.

Instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

If there's a severe recession, the automatic stabilizers will come into effect, and we will still try to reduce the structural deficit, but we will not try to keep cutting the budget so that we keep worsening a severe recession.

It is the policy of the federal government to use all resources at its disposal to make our financial system stronger.

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.

We cannot cut our way to prosperity.

As austerity measures were foisted upon Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and other highly indebted countries, growth was rendered even more elusive, aggravating unemployment

Never in the nation’s history had a president proposed large, simultaneous spending increases and tax cuts when the federal budget already had a deficit.

When your economy is not growing that fast, everybody's got to bite the bullet.

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

The emphasis so far on fiscal austerity, while to a degree necessary for the countries facing market funding difficulties, is excessive when carried out across the board.

Fiscal policy is a very important part of the tool kit for policy makers.

I think the government lost control over fiscal policy in UPA-2. But it is possible to suggest that the momentum of the populism of UPA-1 did the damage when the economy slowed down, but government spending could not.