Quotes about Expenditures

Adam Smith

Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by a revenue raised within the year ... wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken

Theophrastus

Our costliest expenditure is time.

Peter Orszag

Well, a deficit reflects an imbalance between spending and revenue, and so narrowing it requires acting on one, the other or both.

Walter Karp

What chiefly governs the military budget is the need to spend enormous sums of money in a useless way. The allegedly powerful Pentagon is simply a receptacle for wasteful expenditure, just as a city dump is the receptacle for the refuse of a city.

Fred Ikle

Fighting a war can cost more in blood and money than any other undertaking in which nations engage.

George Washington

I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have accepted this arduous employment, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. Those I doubt not they will discharge, and that is all I desire.

Although this was a very generous gesture, Washington’s personal expenses were quite high. His saddle for example was many times the cost of an average saddle. Over the 8 years of his tenure as Commander-In-Chief his expenses amounted to $449,261.51 in 1780 dollars. Year 2000 value would be about $5 million.

Mohawk Indian Tribe

A good chief gives, he does not take.

Louis A. Johnson

In the light of the actual fighting that is now in progress, we have reached the point where the military considerations clearly outweigh the fiscal considerations.

David McCullough

You can tell an awful lot about a civilization by how it spends its money.

Cornelis Felix van Maanen

It is impossible, financially and politically, to lower expenditure to the level of our revenues in the calamitous times in which we live, and so, however painful and afflicting the idea may be, we must exist from day to day and simply await the outcome of events yet in the making …

The Dutch King’s brother, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte Bonaparte, insisted on Dutch contributions to his war effort in the way of Dutch troops, ships and provisions. Yet there was not enough possible revenue to pay for such a war effort.

Michael Johns

To be sure, debates will linger about whether Medicare is too large or too small. Debates remain about the allocation of Medicare dollars. But December 8, 2003, demonstrated that there is no debate on this most fundamental fact: Medicare must survive!

Bahaullah

O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly and grossly unjust ... do not rob them to rear palaces for yourselves.

Husayn Ali Nuri. This was a series of letters which he wrote to Napoleon, the Sultan and the other rulers of the day. At the time he was exiled to Edirne by Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz.

Philip Snowden Ickornshaw

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.

1st Viscount Snowden

Lyndon B. Johnson

Expenditures have to keep rising to keep up with the population [growth].

Margaret Wente

Is it worth the sacrifice so that little girls can go to school? Or are we simply doing the bidding of the neo-imperialist Americans? Why can’t we bring the soldiers home and just build the schools?

Critics of his position observe that the Islamic fundamentalists will never allow girls to go to school even if they were built and they might blow up any school that might be constructed if the allies did not have enough troops in Iraq to protect them and suppress the terrorists. When the Taliban fundamentalists controlled Afghanistan before the coalition drove them out, neither little girls not big girls could acquire education and women were not even allowed to work.

Lewis Anthony Dexter

The federal budget is the workplan of the nation.

Ernst Mach

Science is the most complete presentment of facts with the least expenditure of thought

Tony Gilroy

Once a film costs a certain amount of money, things have to round off.

George Washington

I am religiously persuaded that the duration of the War and the greatest part of the misfortunes and perplexities we have hitherto experienced, are chiefly to be attributed to the System of temporary enlistments. Had we in the commencement raised an Army for the War, such as was within the reach of the Abilities of these States to raise and maintain we should not have suffered those military Checks which have so frequently shaken our cause, nor should we have incurred such enormous expenditures as have destroyed our paper Currency and with it all public credit. A moderate compact force on a permanent establishment capable of acquiring the discipline essential to military operations would have been able to make head against the enemy without comparison better than the throngs of Militia.

The issue of how to raise an army plagued the Founding Fathers. The State Militias had very short enlistment periods so that as soon as the soldiers had been trained and were effective, their enlistments would be up. Washington and others wanted a draft or at least long enlistment periods in an American Army. The debate which then began has never ended. How much regular Army as opposed to the Army Reserves—the equivalent of the State Militias, whether or not there should be a draft, whether or not an enlistment period may be extended if there is a military need—none of these are new issues but have been with us since the country was founded. See {591369} for more of Washington’s view of this issue.