Michael Bloomberg Quotes

In my view, the biggest challenge facing this country is that we are not living within our means. Spending cuts can only get us halfway there.

Families and businesses are tightening their belts to make ends meet - and Washington should too.

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

You cannot go out and say, oh, I am going to raise all this spending, but it's not going to cost anybody any money.

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

We can't continue to spend where there isn't any money.

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

Let us have the courage to stop borrowing to meet continuing deficits. Revenues must cover expenditures by one means or another. Any government, like any family, can, for a year, spend a little more than it earns. But you know and I know that a continuation of the habit means the poor house.

The function of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I understand it, is to resist all demands for expenditure made by his colleagues and, when he can no longer resist, to limit the concession to the barest point of acceptance.

We need to stop this overspending. We need to start turning this battleship in the right direction. And we all have to share in the sacrifice.

When I was speaker in North Carolina, the state was gripped with a deficit, and we made a fundamental policy decision to adopt austerity budgets for four years.

It's time to stop spending money we don't have and balance the budget.

I think to balance the budget, probably every federal department has to take cuts in my opinion.

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.

I'm coming to Washington, D.C., to do the people's work. And the people's work has to do with reducing spending and cutting budgets and, and trying to get a grip on the size of government.

What I wanted to do was see if we couldn't balance the budget.

My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together.

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.

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

I think that, you know, this is a different year than most years. We've got to tell the American people that we have to live with less. We have a $13.5 trillion debt. And the only way to do that is an honest campaign with honest people.

Make no mistake: I will work with both Democrats and Republicans to cut wasteful spending and reduce our debt in a balanced, responsible way.

When Bill Clinton was in town, he sent over a balanced budget.

Without a doubt, first thing we should do is clean up our fiscal house, and that starts with balancing our budgets and digging out of this red ink. We cannot expect to continue in this fashion and remain the leader of the free world.

As American families and businesses have been forced to tighten their belts, Washington has refused to do the same.

Regardless of my legislation, spending has to be stopped.