Pat Toomey Quotes

Putting the budget ahead of the policy is the wrong way to do it. It's too often the way it's done in Washington.

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

The only way you can raise the debt ceiling is to change the trajectory of spending - that's my personal preference. But I want the Ways and Means Committee to offer up a solution.

The deficit - the U.S. knows our deficit is too large. We are committed to bringing it down. We are bringing it down. The deficit came in for fiscal year '05 at considerably below where it was the prior year.

And, Mr. Speaker, if the Governor and Council don't see fit to fall in with us, I say let the general duty law, and all, go to the devil, sir, and go about our business.

It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Government economically administered.

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution ... an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Those who make the most and loudest speeches about deficit reduction are least likely to vote against spending.

It is no part of my job as Chancellor of the Exchequer to put before the House of Commons proposals for the expenditure of public money. 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.

I always think a debt ceiling is a good tool to carry something.

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

Congress has the constitutional responsibility to control the power of the 'purse'.

There are limits to how much countries can spend.

The budget caps were busted, mightily so. And we are reviewing with people like Judd Gregg from New Hampshire and others some budgetary reform measures that will reinstate - you know, possibly reinstate budgetary discipline. But the caps no longer - the caps, I guess they're there. But they didn't mean much.

Domestic discretionary spending on education and health care and the environment has been growing at 2 to 3 percent a year. He says we have to rein it in, but he ignores the spending category that is the big spike in the budget.

You know, even people who talk about cutting spending and they go 'That's not the spending that I was actually talking about that you're supposed to be cutting.' Well, we have to be looking across the board.

I am specifically concerned about the idea that the legislative process is one that gets characterized the way it is as the 'fiscal cliff.' At the end of the day, the United States is the biggest economy in the world, and the dollar is the reserve currency in the world. I think it behooves us to act in a much more responsible way.

Raising the debt limit on some levels is a ministerial act. It doesn't involve any new spending.

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 have said, with respect to authorization bills, that I do not want the Congress or the country to commit fiscal suicide on the installment plan.

Fiscal policy is not just, or even not even principally, the purview of the president.

You got to have a courageous president to stand up and says, listen, if - if you send a bill to me that spends more money than what we've coming in, I'll veto it. I mean, I'm going to try to work with you the best I can, but I'm going to veto it.

If it took multiple debt ceiling hikes, I'd rather achieve the savings.