“This isn't for capital projects like roads and bridges. It's for private groups. A lot of this is taxpayer-supported debt going to the private sector. In some cases it might be warranted, but our very basic recommendation is to let people know what it is.”
Erika Rosenberg
“You cannot spend your way out of a recession or borrow your way out of debt... You know and we know and you know that we know that it's nonsense... The European Commission has said so. The markets say so, ... In a few months, the voters will have their chance to say so, too. They can see what the markets have seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government"”
Daniel Hannan
“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”
Thomas Jefferson
“We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much”
Ronald Reagan
“The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
“They're never going to be repaid. Adam Smith said that no government had ever repaid its debts and the same can be said of the private sector. The U.S. government does not intend to repay its trillion dollar debt to foreign central banks and, even if it did intend to, there's no way in which it could. Most of the corporations now are avoiding paying their pension fund debts and their health care debts.”
Michael Hudson
“Mr. President, that whimsical English professor, Dr. Parkinson, should formulate another Parkinson's law relating to the public debt since it so closely parallels his law on bureaucratic growth. Just as spending will always reach and overtake revenues so the public debt will constantly pierce the ceiling and finally go into orbit.”
Everett Dirksen
