Budget Reform Quotes

Trillions of dollars in out-of-control entitlement spending cannot be remedied by cuts in NASA, or even in the entire discretionary budget, defense included. Rather, the financial bleeding needs to be staunched where the hole is and nowhere else.

This is not a Budget, but a revolution; a social and political revolution of the first magnitude.

We need to replace hyperbole with a reasonable, informed discussion about how to reinvent the federal budget with more transparency and better accountability.

When you’ve changed the budget, you’ve really changed the government, and until you change the budget, you’ve just talked about changing government.

The Farm Bill is one of the only bills that provides substantial deficit reduction that passed the Senate this year. It only makes sense that this deficit reduction bill would be included in a larger deficit reduction agreement.

You want to balance the budget in this country? We change the salary structure for Congress and the President. Every year they don't balance the budget, we don't pay them.

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.

Reducing the budget for Amtrak makes no sense unless the Administration is prepared to implement a reform strategy which can be supported by the budget request.

Obama is not only obstructing budget reform; it's almost as if he is trying to make matters worse.

I look forward to being a voice of reason in fighting for transparent and accountable budgets.

In point of fact, 'Simpson-Bowles' has become a symbol, or SimBowl, rather than an actual plan, political shorthand for the process of long-term deficit reduction.

My constituents say, 'Congressman, have you balanced the budget?' And I'm going to say, 'Well, we're working on it.' And they are going to say, 'Well, Congressman, did you get rid of Fannie and Freddie?' And I'm going to say, 'Well, we're working on it.'

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 think that all areas of the budget have to be scrubbed. Clearly the entitlement issues have to be reformed and that's an issue that's going to require I think some strong bipartisan cooperation and leadership.

At Concerned Veterans for America, we've made the case that the defense budget could be targeted for spending reform, but in a targeted fashion that genuinely changes unsustainable spending trajectories while preserving U.S. defense capacity.

America needs a new approach to boost the economy - one that does not doom future generations to being saddled with paying off today's federal deficits.

The important aspect as we look at this budget, and as we look at previous budgets, is the budget system - what I'm trying to get at is changing budgeting itself in Wisconsin.

Tax increases slow economic growth. Why would you raise taxes? We need to reform spending, the tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities can never be funded by tax increases, that can only be fixed by reducing spending.

It is foolish for Republicans to continue opening the door to job-killing tax hikes while Democrats refuse to explain how they propose to reform mandatory spending - mostly entitlements - that makes up almost two-thirds of the federal budget.

I am going to give the American people a huge helping of unbridled truth: that we can't continue to spend what we are spending, that we can't avoid entitlement reform because we are afraid of third rail politics.

The people of Illinois sent me to Springfield to end the era of unbalanced budgets and runaway debt.

What we do want to see is reforms that are going to have a permanent effect on the budget deficit.

We know that appropriators will fight these cutbacks. But by eliminating earmarks, we can stop the horse trading that grows agency budgets.

Were not cutting the budget simply for the sake of sounder financial management. This is only a first step toward returning power to the states and communities, only a first step toward reordering the relationship between citizen and government.

We've unveiled the most comprehensive reform budget people have seen in a generation.