Quotes & Sayings About America's Debt

Civilizations rise and fall on confidence. America had figured out a way to borrow money to manufacture it. — Ron Suskind

Despite all the challenges facing higher education in America, from mounting student debt to grade inflation and erratic standards, our system is rightly the world's envy, and not just because our most revered universities remain on the cutting edge of research and attract talent from around the globe. We also have a plenitude and variety of settings for learning that are unrivaled. In light of that, the process of applying to college should and could be about ecstatically rummaging through those possibilities and feeling energized, even elated, by them. But for too many students, it's not, and financial constraints aren't the only reason. Failures of boldness and imagination by both students and parents bear some blame. The information is all out there. You just have to look. — Frank Bruni

Acts have consequences, Dixon, they must. These Louts believe all's right now,
that they are free to get on with Lives that to them are no doubt important,
with no Glimmer at all of the Debt they have taken on. That is what I smell'd,
Lethe-Water. One of the things the newly-born forget, is how terrible its Taste, and Smell. In Time, these People are able to forget ev'rything. Be willing but to wait a little, and ye may gull them again and again, however ye wish,
even unto their own Dissolution. In America, as I apprehend, Time is the true River that runs 'round Hell. — Thomas Pynchon

As the United States chains itself down with greater debt, China is building relationships across the globe to bolster its trade, its access to natural resources, and its energy consumption. In far too many cases, this means lost opportunities for America and our businesses. — Reince Priebus

I'm proud to acknowledge my debt to the 'Reverend Satchelmouth' ... He is the beginning and the end of music in America — Bing Crosby

The amount of new lending was mind-boggling: between 2003 and 2005, outstanding mortgage debt in America grew by $3.7 trillion, which was roughly equal to the entire value of all American real estate in the year 1990 ($3.8 trillion). In other words, Americans in just two years had borrowed the equivalent of two hundred years' worth of savings. — Matt Taibbi

We still have a major problem in debt with America that we have to find efficiencies in government to get us back to a balanced budget. — James Lankford

America pays its bills. It always has. It always will. The fact that Washington is now debating whether to honor its debts and obligations, then, should come as a surprise. But playing political football with a necessary vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling has become as predictable as a Twitter rant from Charlie Sheen. — Peter Welch

I will never forget the debt we owe to those who have fought to keep America safe. — Tom Udall

I really truly worry that the debt is one of the single biggest threat to the United States of America, that we're talking about a problem that is multi-trillion in its depth and I think we ought to be cutting more. — Jason Chaffetz

Sharecropping is the dirty little secret at the root of America's wealth - along with slavery itself. The immense profits generated by the industrious yet impoverished Black "sharecroppers" and "tenant farmers" financed Europe's and America's Industrial Revolution, including the building of their railroads, factories, mills, and their entire infrastructure. It is truthfully asserted that the major cities of America and the Western world were "built with bricks of cotton." Today the debt traps designed to ensnare the working poor and middle class in a lifelong cycle of debt - the high-cost installment loans that charge usurious interest rates of 100% or more, the "payday" loans that charge 400% interest, the extortionate credit card multi-charges, the subprime mortgages with ballooning interest rates, and the home equity loan swindles - are the bastard children of the sharecropping American South. It — Reclamation Project

The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the "American dream"-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system — Zbigniew Brzezinski

His mind filled with visions of a decadent kleptocracy in rapid decline, abetted by both political parties. America's masses, fed on processed poison bought with a food stamp swipe card. Low-skill workers, structurally unable to ever contribute again and too dumb to know their old jobs weren't coming back. The banks in Gotham leaching the last drops of wealth out of the country. Corporations unrestrained by any notion of national interest. The system of property law in shambles. The world drowning in debt. — George Packer

The build-up of personal and collective debt in America and Europe should have sent warning signals to anyone familiar with the biblical institutions of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, created specifically because of the danger of people being trapped by debt. — Jonathan Sacks

More taxes, more regulation, more Washington domination, more debt. Those things are not the future for America. They will never work. — Jeff Sessions

America has so much debt, if she were a person she'd need a co-signer to get a car loan. — Dov Davidoff

Trump revealed his powerful secret to conquering financial adversity once, in a meeting to promote another one of his signature, view-eating housing developments: "You know," he said, "what New York really needs - besides this project - is to reduce its debt. And let me tell you - this is something I know - it's easy! You just don't pay!" America — Cintra Wilson

Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally . Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. — Barack Obama

We must work to repeal trade agreements that impede access to affordable generic drugs. We must work to cause the IMF and the World Bank to reduce and eventually eliminate the debt that takes poor nations' resources away from crises like AIDS. We must focus America's leadership on addressing and ending this epidemic. — Dennis Kucinich

Young people deserve stable employment opportunities and not mountains of debt. When young people can access the middle class, America is strengthened. — Patrick Murphy

The only way we will ever reduce the debt and balance the budget is if America beats Washington and tea party activists take over this process. — Matt Kibbe

There's also consumer debt, the credit card debt that burdens many of the working families in America. Yes, we talk about national debt, and we're paying a lot down. But you're fixing to hear me tell you part of the remedy for people who have got a lot of credit card debt is to make sure people get some of their own money back. — George W. Bush

Developed countries will always welcome the Einsteins of this world - those individuals whose talents are already recognized and deemed to have value. This welcome doesn't usually extend to the poor and uneducated people seeking to enter the country. But the truth, supported by the facts of history and the richness of immigrant contribution to America's distinction in the world, is that the most entrepreneurial, innovative, motivated citizen is the one who has been given an opportunity and wants to repay the debt. — Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa

The debt-ceiling vote isn't about what will be done in the future; it is about the integrity of America's commitment to support the bonds we issue. Elected officials have an obligation to maintain that integrity, regardless of whether they voted for the programs that required the borrowing in the first place. — John Sununu

President Obama has been a disaster for America. He's wrecked our economy, saddled our children with more debt than America managed to rack up in 225 years, and gone around the world apologizing for our country - as if the greatest nation in the world needs to apologize for being a land of opportunity and freedom, which we were before Obama became president. — Donald Trump

Stupid to keep cash, there was no reason for it other than his dislike of credit cards and checks and stocks and instruments of transfer, all the tempting chains that tied people to America's overwhelming and ultimately destructive debt-and-spend machine. But the cash might be his salvation. Cash could be replaced. The notebooks, over a hundred and fifty of them, could not. — Stephen King

You remember had this gigantic clock in the arena showing the size of the national debt. And Paul told America, if you elect Republicans, we can fix that. But, if Paul Ryan was being honest, he would've pointed to the debt clock and said, we built that. — Chris Van Hollen

The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests. — Evan Bayh

You're nothing in America if you don't have debt. — Rita Mae Brown

I'm suggesting that, until America takes care of its debt, untangles the housing mess and gets unemployment under control, we all commit to working six days a week. Yep, move the standard 35-40 hour work week right up to 48 hours. — Jason Calacanis

The 1970s must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters, and our living environment. It is literally now or never. — Richard M. Nixon

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt. — Scott Brown

When America's creditors consider our behavior they see total fiscal irresponsibility. They see a deluded country that acts as if it is a privilege for foreigners to lend to it, and a deluded country that believes that foreigners will continue to accumulate US debt until the end of time. The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt. — Paul Craig Roberts

If you initialed one dollar per second, you would make $1,000 every seventeen minutes. After 12 days of nonstop effort you would acquire your first $1 million. Thus, it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10 million and 1,200 days - something over three years - to reach $100 million. After 31.7 years you would become a billionaire, and after almost a thousand years you would be as wealthy as Bill Gates. But not until after 31,709.8 years would you count your trillionth dollar (and even then you would be less than one-fourth of the way through the pile of money representing America's national debt). That is what $1 trillion is. — Bill Bryson

Everyone in the room knew about leveraged buyouts, often called LBOs. In an LBO, a small group of senior executives, usually working with a Wall Street partner, proposes to buy its company from public shareholders, using massive amounts of borrowed money. Critics of this procedure called it stealing the company from its owners and fretted that the growing mountain of corporate debt was hindering America's ability to compete abroad. Everyone knew LBOs meant deep cuts in research and every other imaginable budget, all sacrificed to pay off debt. Proponents insisted that companies forced to meet steep debt payments grew lean and mean. On one thing they all agreed: The executives who launched LBOs got filthy rich. — Bryan Burrough

My point is cutting spending shouldn't be reliant on the debt limit though. It's something we have to do. The good news for America is, leaders in both parties, the president, believe that we have to have significant deficit reduction. So the intent is there. And I think what America is going to demand is that our leaders come together. — David Plouffe

President Obama's call for nearly a half-trillion dollars in more government stimulus when America has more than $14 trillion in debt is guided by his mistaken belief that we can spend our way to prosperity. — Rick Perry

The United States has already passed on as the world's economic leader. Having flouted Thomas Jefferson for too long, America has succumbed to public debt, the 'fore horse for oppression and despotism,' after which 'taxation will follow, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. — Ilana Mercer

Stop and think about it: even just leveling the playing field with China for a decade would be the equivalent of one-fifth of our national debt (and would have been one-third of our debt had we not elected the community organizer). You add in several hundred billion a year from putting OPEC in line, hundreds of billions from negotiating properly with the many other countries that are ripping us off, root out the hundreds of billions of incredible fraud that occur every year (more on that later), and now we have a debt problem America can manage - one where we can attack waste and abuse and whittle down the remaining debt to get our fiscal house in order. So that's the first step: bringing home the hundreds of billions of dollars that the petro thugs at OPEC and our enemy China steal from us every single year - and then go after all of the others. — Donald J. Trump

It is my growing conviction that the Baptist churches in America are behind the age in missionary spirit. They now and then make a spasmodic effort to throw off a nightmare debt of some years' accumulation, and then sink back into unconscious repose. — Adoniram Judson

As the U.S. did during the Space Race, we must invest in our businesses and intellect to ensure America leads the clean energy economy of the future. As we all know, the best way to reduce our deficit and bring down our debt is by putting Americans back to work. — Paul Tonko

So the Bush-Obama administration has taken a fiscal stance diametrically opposed to that of the patron saint of free enterprise. While escalating war in Afghanistan and maintaining over 850 military bases around the world, the administration has run up the national debt that Smith decried. By shifting the tax burden off property and off rent-seeking monopolies - above all, off the financial sector - this policy has raised America's cost of living and doing business, thereby undercutting its competitive power and running up larger and larger foreign debt. — Michael Hudson

The more comprehensive and convincing a debt reduction program is, the less likely it is to fail. And remember, just as Germany is grateful to America for the Marshall Plan, Italy would be grateful to Germany for helping it lower its refinancing costs. — George Soros

We want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. — Barack Obama

You know, Hoosiers recognize pork when we see it. And they recognize what bailing out every failing business in America means - We're burying generations under a mountain range of debt. — Mike Pence

The president says we need to raise the debt ceiling because America pays its bills. No if we paid our bills we wouldn't have all this debt. The reason we have to raise the debt ceiling is because we can't pay our bills and we have to borrow money because we don't have any money to pay our bills. — Peter Schiff

Instead of explaining the sober facts of mechanics and electricity, I want to say a few words about the debt which we owe to youth; and with your permission I shall consider you as representing here not only the academic youth of Sweden nor even of Europe but also of America. — Felix Bloch

The crash of 2008 ought to have thrown a bucket of cold water over the excited futurologists. Open societies suffered far more than closed regimes. A member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was entitled to wonder why Americans were telling him he must allow free speech when China was booming and the First Amendment had not stopped debt-laden America going through a deep recession. — Nick Cohen

A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt. — Barack Obama

In the United States we have the great Harvard Business School, but America is the country with the greatest debt in the world. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness - justice. — Martin Luther

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices. — Harry S. Truman

What we are effectively doing, I say this to the young people of America whom my colleagues represent, is leaving our children and grandchildren the tab for fighting a war, letting them pay for the lion's share of it by simply adding it to the national debt. — John Spratt

The reality for us in America is that we will never get out of debt with more than 15 million people out of work. — Debbie Stabenow

In America, we tax work, investment, employment, savings, and production, while we subsidize non-work, consumption, and debt. It's time we reverse this trend. — Jack Kemp

America's fighting men and women sacrifice much to ensure that our great nation stays free. We owe a debt of gratitude to the soldiers that have paid the ultimate price for this cause, as well as for those who are blessed enough to return from the battlefield unscathed. — Allen Boyd

When I look at the Republicans, I am tempted to dismiss them as the Treason Party. Seriously, were a band of traitors to concoct a series of positions deliberately designed to weaken America, they would be hard pressed to beat the current GOP dogma - hobble education, starve the government by slashing taxes to the rich, kneecap attempts to jumpstart the economy by fixating on debt, invite corporations to dominate political discourse, balkanize the population by demonizing minorities and immigrants and let favored religions dictate social policy. — Neil Steinberg

That the policies - from energy to labor policies, trade policies, government policies relating to debt and deficits are all aligning in such a way that America, far from being one of the places people are running from, is a place people are going to come to and add jobs. — Mitt Romney

I do not want America to default on its debt. — Jeb Hensarling

In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the Neo-Con-Artists seized the economy and added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defence, three times more for gasoline and home-heating oil and twice what we payed for health-care. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health-care, their pensions; trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war payed for with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the President's oil men are maneuvering on Iraq's oil. Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Borrowed money to start a hot war with Iran, now we have another cold war with Russia and the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette. — Dennis Kucinich

Raising the debt ceiling is not additional spending. It is simply saying, you, the United States of America, can continue to borrow the money you need to pay the bills you have already rung up. — Jay Carney

I think at the end of the day we have to raise the debt ceiling, because America pays its bills. — Terri Sewell

We've got to start worrying about America. And if we don't start dealing with the debt we have and the deficit spending we have in Washington, politics doesn't matter, because the American people do realize that they have to balance their budgets. — Marlin Stutzman

We need to understand as a nation that you can't forever expect somebody out there, whether it's China or somebody in England, to say, 'I will always take America's debt no matter what.' — Kenneth Langone

approach reveals a point that is often overlooked. It is certainly desirable that societies with bad institutions should get better ones. We see that process going on today all over the world, in much of Asia, in parts of South America and even in Africa. But there is a more insidious process that is going on at the same time, whereby societies with good institutions gradually get worse ones. Why is this? Who exactly are the enemies of the rule of law, the people responsible for the marked deterioration that I detect in our institutions on both sides of the Atlantic? My answers to these questions owe a considerable debt to a now large body of — Niall Ferguson

I love America for its bourgeois comfort. If I was as heavily in debt as they are, I wouldn't be drinking tea or coffee anywhere. I would be sipping tap water from an old bottle and serving others tea or coffee in a cafe somewhere. — Vann Chow

The young patriots now returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other deployments worldwide are joining the ranks of veterans to whom America owes an immense debt of gratitude. — Steve Buyer

Is it possible to envision a nation of effectual governance at each level, and thoughtful candidates and office-holders who understand that Washington, America's central government, no longer works well? Ironically, those who want a central
government to do more and more are asking for a central government that does less and less well, while piling up debt that is passed on to the next generation. — Al Sikes

Let's look at the amounts involved.5 When George W. Bush left office, the federal debt was $9 trillion. That's a huge amount, and Bush added nearly $4 trillion to the total, a disgraceful legacy caused primarily by profligate domestic spending and foreign wars. Bush's second term deficits averaged around $500 billion. But still, the $9 trillion represented America's entire debt accumulated from the founding through 2008. Now, under Obama, the federal debt is $18.5 trillion. It's larger than America's gross domestic product which is around $17 trillion. The debt will be over $19 trillion when Obama leaves office. While progressives professed to be scandalized by Bush's $500 billion deficits, they have remained silent while Obama racks up trillion-dollar deficits. — Dinesh D'Souza

It would mean a continuation of his relentless expansion of federal government power; more explosive increases in his crushing, multitrillion-dollar inter-generational debt; a weak foreign policy coupled with his evisceration of America's military; and the likelihood that more Obama-appointed Supreme Court justices would assure a left-leaning majority on America's top court for at least a generation. — Aaron Klein

None of the problems that caused the crises in Europe and America have been resolved. They have been delayed and expanded by more debt and more money printing and will lead to more and worse crises. — Bill Bonner

There's nothing inappropriate about having debt in America. It's what helped us grow over time. And it's when debt gets out of control that you worry. — Warren Buffett

Sure enough, America was shocked by Babson's words: "More people are borrowing and speculating today than ever in our history. Sooner or later a crash is coming which will take in the leading stocks and cause a decline of from 60 to 80 points in the Dow Jones barometer. Wise are those investors who get out of debt and reef their sails. — Kenneth L. Fisher

Every generation has an obligation to leave its children in a better position than it inherited. Our representatives in Washington are breaking faith with that covenant. America must reduce its federal spending and accumulation of debt for the sake of generations to come. — David Malpass

You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay. — Herbert Hoover

America needs education reform on all levels to expand quality schools, build on past successes, and lower college debt. — Kevin McCarthy

I owe a debt to America that I will never be able to repay. — Marco Rubio

War has generally had grave and fateful consequences for the American monetary and financial system. We have seen that the Revolutionary War occasioned a mass of depreciated fiat paper, worthless Continentals, a huge public debt, and the beginnings of central banking in the Bank of North America. — Murray Rothbard