Mike Quigley Quotes

It was my privilege to serve with Paul Ryan in the House and on the Ways and Means Committee. Ryan's vast experience and bold, reform-minded ideas were always evident. His knowledge of the federal budget is widely recognized.

Keeping a lid on taxes is not just good for the taxpayer. It's a powerful way to force government to be more accountable, set priorities and spend smarter. Let me repeat that: more accountable, set priorities and spend smarter - that's what we need to be about.

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

I came to Congress to help reduce spending.

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.

States, virtually all of them, have a constitutional requirement to operate on a balanced budget.

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

Most of the major increases in the debt ceiling have been accompanied by structural changes in the way we raise and spend money.

He [President Ronald Reagan] has tried to balance the budget on the backs of state and local government.

We need to focus on issues where we all agree, which is spending discipline and control and making sure that government, both in Springfield and in Washington, doesn't take more from your family budget.

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

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.

It's all right to agree or disagree on the balanced budget amendment. It's all right to talk about how we're going to appropriate.

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.

Memo to Congress: America's problem is not that government is too small. It's the spending, stupid!

I was the chairman of the House Budget Committee and one of the chief architects the last time we balanced a budget, and it was the first time we had done it since man walked on the moon. We had a $5 trillion surplus and we cut taxes.

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

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.

As a fiscal conservative, I think that our government should pay for itself.

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.