Barbara Castle Quotes

Government is just spending too much money.

What's hurting the U.S. economy is total government spending. The deficit is an indicator that the government is spending so much money that it can't even get around to stealing all of the money that it wants to spend. But the tip of the iceberg is not what hit the Titanic - it was the 90 percent of the iceberg under water.

What you really want to do is sit down and find a place that you can control government spending and raise more revenue.

In 2005, before I was president, the state of Bolivia had only $300 million from hydrocarbons. Last year, 2007, the Bolivian state - after the nationalization, after changing the law - Bolivia received $1,930 million. For a small country with nearly 10 million inhabitants, this allows us to increase the national economy.

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.

Throughout history governments have been chronically short of revenue. The reason should be clear: unlike you and me, governments do not produce useful goods and services that they can sell on the market; governments, rather than producing and selling services, live parasitically off the market and off society.

If the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes for you and me for? Why don't it make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us?

It was an absurd theory that by cutting taxes you would increase government revenues, because the growth of the economy would create an overflow of taxes that would fall into the government coffers.

We have to deal with two issues. Spending and taxes.

If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.

When the period arrives - come when it may - that this government will be compelled to resort to internal taxes for its support in time of peace, it will mark one of the most difficult and dangerous stages through which it is destined to pass.

In the current law we're seeing Social Security dwindle. And so what we're saying is if we're going to reduce taxes we just want to make sure that there are things within the law that pay for it.

When you talk about the oil wealth you compare nations. There are some nations with less than five million people. Nigeria has 150 million people. I cannot say that all the money earned from oil since 1958, when the first drop of oil was exported from this country to date, that the money has been effectively used.

If the U.S. Government was a company, the deficit would be $5 trillion because they would have to account by general accepted accounting principles. But actually they encourage government spending, reckless government spending, because the government can issue Treasury bills at extremely low interest rates.

The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.

Government spending is taxation. When you look at this, I've never heard of a poor person spending himself into prosperity; let alone I've never heard of a poor person taxing himself into prosperity.

In the business world, lower profits reflect less demand for your product. But in government the opposite is true - demand for our services increases in hard times.

If you ask people do you think that government should spend less money than what it takes in, most people agree with that.

What the oil producer gets paid is about 16 percent. The majority of it is tax, which in fairness to the government of this country they have accepted and admitted.

The nominal budget is a poor indicator of the impact of government outlays and revenues.

There is no question that we are in a period in which we are going to have to use those sources to fund about 35 million dollars a year that used to be paid for by the federal government.

If we don't get this economy going, the numbers that represent this stimulus package are going to be small compared to the loss of revenue to the federal government for our economy.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

There is no such thing as a 'free' government benefit. Ask small-business owners who are footing skyrocketing bills for bottomless jobless benefits.

The government can access these funds but only following approval by the parliament to support our budget requirements and investments in infrastructure development, education, public health, and so on.