Adam Smith Quotes

Defaulting on our [national] debt is defaulting on America.

I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

Madame Deficit

Our national finances are in a ruinous state.

A public debt is a public curse and in a representative government greater than any other.

The party in power almost always unapologetically engages in deficit spending, while the other party argues passionately against the evils of debt and deficits.

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.

After everyone has had a chance to bluster, posture, and pontificate, we are left with one basic question: under any foreseeable circumstance, would it be in our national interest to default on our debt? The answer is unequivocally no.

Whether they run a record company or a grocery store, every boss will tell you you're in big trouble if you're borrowing more than you can ever afford to pay back. Delaying the pain for future generations is suicidal. We've got to start getting the deficit down right now, not next year.

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child.

There can be no such thing as a state's right to default on a national duty.

There are only three ways to meet the unpaid bills of a nation. The first is taxation. The second is repudiation. The third is inflation.

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.

May the debt of the United States be discharged with speed and punctuality; and let not the people be deceived, by having the funds, established for that purpose, put to other uses.

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from—so it must be with a government.

A national debt, properly funded and serviced, can be a potent instrument of national policy.

Deficit, deficit, deficit. The political and media elites are obsessed with the D-word.

The Obama administration's large and sustained increases in debt raise the specter of another financial crisis and large future tax increases, further chilling business investment and job creation.

Look, I don't dispute that the deficit has increased.

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors.

We can have tax cuts, but when we have tax cuts and do not have a surplus, the amount of the tax cut goes straight to the bottom line, adds to the deficit, and the deficit adds to the national debt, and sooner or later, the debt has to be paid.

Well, I think what we need to remember is that budget deficits can impede economic activity.

Our nation suffers when Congress fails to pay America's bills on time.

I've got a chart here that shows our debt-to-GDP ratio. And while we did run deficits in the past, we now number our debt in trillions rather than in billions. And I think that represents a long-term danger, especially to the, the American dream.

The national debt is totally unlike a family budget for about a gazillion reasons, not the least of which being that families cannot raise money by fiat or deflate the size of their debt unilaterally and that family members die instead of existing infinitely.