Quotes & Sayings About Budget Cuts

A federal bailout would spare California from having to make spending cuts needed to bring its budget into balance. The matter has become urgent since California voters rejected several tax-hiking ballot initiatives. Rather than taking the vote as a signal to dramatically curtail spending, the state turned to the feds. If they get a free pass, the politicians can avoid fixing any of their past mistakes or preparing California for the future. — Peter Schiff

Too often, we make budget cuts - then blow the savings. Instead, think about your financial picture. Do you have high-interest rate debt? Paying it off faster will save you a bundle. — Jean Chatzky

In this time of budget cuts, we cannot forget that basic science is a building block for scientific innovation and economic growth in the information age. — Tim Bishop

Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialised UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organisations in the world. — Jeffrey Sachs

We have to have an aggressive, long-term plan to tackle our nation's debt, but attempting to balance the budget on the backs of veterans who have risked life and limb in service of our country is unacceptable. I believe we can and should work together to find reasonable and common-sense cuts that will reduce our debt, but as a generation of warriors returns from two wars, our most solemn responsibility is to make sure they have the care and benefits they have earned. — Tim Walz

Even with not having a balanced budget at this time, I support tax cuts. That will help limit spending. — Steve Chabot

Which European leader today would not relish the wonder-working powers of a Moses? Budget deficit? Unpopular cuts? How about just a little miracle, an overnight increase in gold reserves, a new oil field, or the next world-changing communications technology? Surely that's not too much to ask. — Jonathan Sacks

The air strikes are important [to fight ISIS], but we need to have an air force capable of it. And because of the budget cuts we are facing in this country, we are going to be left with the oldest and the smallest Air Force we have ever had. We have to reverse those cuts, in addition to the cuts to our Navy and in addition to the cuts to our Army, as well. — Marco Rubio

Britain has taken itself out as a major player in the international system, at least for a while, with the kind of cuts that they've made in their national security budget. — Robert Kagan

I think the Republican budget priorities are messed up. I salute for the way they're attacking some of the entitlement programs, but they are taking huge cuts, by pretending they're just block-granting it to the states, out of Medicaid, from the least fortunate. — David Brooks

But the real reasons why scientists promote accommodationism are more self-serving. To a large extent, American scientists depend for their support on the American public, which is largely religious, and on the U.S. Congress, which is equally religious. (It's a given that it's nearly impossible for an open atheist to be elected to Congress, and at election time candidates vie with one another to parade their religious belief.) Most researchers are supported by federal grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, whose budgets are set annually by Congress. To a working scientist, such grants are a lifeline, for research is expensive, and if you don't do it you could lose tenure, promotions, or raises. Any claim that science is somehow in conflict with religion might lead to cuts in the science budget, or so scientists believe, thus endangering their professional welfare. — Jerry A. Coyne

Claiming "the budget can't allow it" reminds me of when you walk into a restaurant at a civilized hour like ten o'clock and they say "the kitchen is closed." For years I would hear this, and think, "damn, just a little too late, oh well, thank you, I guess it's Denny's again."
And then one day it hit me: kitchens don't close. Just as at home, at a certain point in the night, I stop using the kitchen
but at three in the morning, if I want to, I still have the ability to go downstairs and "re-open" the kitchen by turning on the stove and opening the refrigerator! Restaurants are not banks; at the stroke of ten an enormous airlock doesn't seal off the kitchen and render the preparation of food an utter impossibility./ No, kitchens can open and budgets are what certain people say they are. — Bill Maher

I support responsible spending, and balancing the budget, but this tax cut and the budget cuts of last month accomplish neither of these goals. — Marty Meehan

His presidency ended more than a decade ago, but politicians, Democrat and Republican, still talk about Ronald Reagan. Al Gore has an ad noting that in Congress he opposed the Reagan budget cuts. He says that because Bill Bradley was one of 36 Democratic Senators who voted for the cuts. Gore doesn't point out that Bradley also voted against the popular Reagan tax cuts and that it was the tax cuts that piled up those enormous deficits, a snowballing national debt. — Bruce Morton

On Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House voted mostly along party lines tonight to pass President Bush's federal budget blueprint. This includes his big tax cut plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid programs for children and education. — Dan Rather

In politics, looking at the big picture is the most convenient way to avoid getting bogged down in annoying little details, like the facts. That's why politicians always talk in generalities, such as "balancing the budget" or "obtaining justice under law" or "maintaining meaningful employment," when they really mean "massive spending cuts in programs advocated by my opens," or "creating a religious loophole for my largest contributor," or "keeping open a redundant and wasteful government facility in my district. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

When we were negotiating the ongoing financial period in 2013, I talked myself hoarse. London and Berlin in particular insisted on reducing the budget. So we - to the applause of German journalists - made cuts to central future-oriented areas and slashed the budget for development aid, research and technology. — Martin Schulz

If American women increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children. — Coretta Scott King

New EU embassies lack the expertise in the field of culture and given the budget cuts in all Member States it is important to confront this challenge together. — Pierre Vimont

Pentagon's readiness and modernization problems are not due to budget cuts. The are the result of habitual modes of conduct evolved during the Cold War and a desire by the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC) to protect its comfortable life style in a world that is changing rapidly. — Franklin C. Spinney

Rule #1: No cut or compromise should be suggested by ANY member of the community. This includes the music coalition, music educators, and the music supervisor.
Suggest a cut or compromise, and you become responsible for the decision. — John Benham

Oh, yes, they're still angry. At Third World aid, cuts in the defence budget, women priests, marriages for homosexuals, our new countrymen, all the things you would guess would upset these old boys. In their hearts they're still fascists. — Jo Nesbo

The budget does not adequately fund important domestic programs, promotes tax cuts to the detriment of other priorities and does little to put our nation's fiscal house in order. — Jim Jeffords

In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts would come from low-income programs. Yet at the same time, the Republican budget would provide a substantial tax cut to the rich - who are already taking home an almost unprecedented share of the nation's total income. — Robert B. Reich

Without an understanding of history, we are politically, culturally and socially impoverished. If we sacrifice history to economic pressures or to budget cuts, we will lose a part of who we are. — Antony Beevor

Medicaid provides health care to our neediest citizens. While other states have had to cut Medicaid rolls and benefits already, Delaware has not. But the President's proposed budget would shift tens of millions of dollars of cost to the states, raising the real possibility of program cuts. — Ruth Ann Minner

Your child's future was the first to go with budget cuts. — Lupe Fiasco

In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense. — Jennifer Granholm

Together we can and must fight for justice for our children and protect them from draconian tax cuts and budget choices that threaten their survival, education and preparation for the future. If they are not ready for tomorrow, neither is America. — Marian Wright Edelman

But you have to have a vision of what kind of military you are trying to build in order to get the [budget] cuts to make sense. — Jessica Mathews

I would vote to increase the debt limit if there was a corresponding level of cuts. And if there was some serious talk about a balanced budget amendment, which we as governors always had to deal with. — Jon Huntsman Jr.

Every tax cut I call for is targeted, it's responsible and it is paid for within my balanced budget plan. My tax cuts will not undermine our economy. They will speed economic growth. — William J. Clinton

It's good news that he is proposing to restore budget cuts that he made, but the reality is that he is still proposing a 4.5 percent increase in tuition that's above inflation. — James Rosapepe

It isn't as much you a spending problem as a priorities, and that is what the budget is, setting priorities. It's about timing. And it's about timing as to when make cuts, as well. — Nancy Pelosi

Dwight Eisenhower's first two years in office actually cut the budget substantially, though not dramatically, below the previous year. Now we have "budget cuts" which are not cuts, but rather substantial increases over the previous year's expenditures. "Cut" became subtly but crucially redefined as reducing something else. What the something else might be didn't seem to matter, so long as the focus was taken off actual dollar expenditures. Sometimes it was a cut "in the rate of increase," other times it was a cut in "real" spending, at still others it was a percentage of GNP, and at yet other times it was a cut in the sense of being below past projections for that year. — Ludwig Von Mises

Several unions have agreed to larger employee contributions for their members. Taxpayers are living with cuts and making sacrifices to deal with the reality of California's budget crisis, state workers are going to have to do the same. — Jerry Brown

Obama's Democrats have become the part of no. Real cuts to federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no. — Charles Krauthammer

Because tax cuts create an incentive to increase output, employment, and production, they also help balance the budget by reducing means-tested government expenditures. A faster-growing economy means lower unemployment and higher incomes, resulting in reduced unemployment benefits and other social welfare programs. — Arthur Laffer

Budget cuts if you're not rich, tax cuts if you are. Less money for those who don't have any and more to those who do. That's how President Fredo says we're going to get out of the giant deficit hole he's dug. You can't put it any more simply. Rich people richer. Poor people poorer. — Will Durst

To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget. You don't take more from the private sector and grow government with it. And that's exactly what Obama has in mind with this expiration of Bush tax cuts proposal of his. — Sarah Palin

Sometimes a party must sail against the wind. We cannot heed the call of those who say it is time to furl the sail. The party that tore itself apart over Vietnam in the 1960s cannot afford to tear itself apart today over budget cuts in basic social programs. — Edward Kennedy

Additional federal studies are under way to see if any contamination reaches taps or ground water used for drinking, but the program under which they are conducted, the toxic substances hydrology program of the geological survey, is slated to be eliminated under budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration, government officials said ... estrogens and similar compounds are increasingly the focus of research by the Environmental Protection Agency and many scientists because of hints that they alter sexual characteristics in fish and other aquatic species. — Andrew Revkin

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

I have encountered those who feel that libraries have served their purpose and are no longer needed. There are those who consider them a soft target when it comes to local authority budget cuts. In certain political quarters, there is a refusal to see that our public library service needs active protection. — Malorie Blackman

As budget cuts cripple civilian agencies and programs, they lose their ability to perform ad they once did, so we look to the military to pick up the slack. . . . This requires still higher military budgets, which continues the devastating cycle. — Rosa Brooks

A library is such a potent symbol of a town's values: each one closed down might as well be six thousand stickers plastered over every available surface, reading WE CHOSE TO BECOME MORE STUPID AND DULL. — Caitlin Moran

If we can't find cuts in the defense budget, we're not looking carefully enough. — Jon Huntsman Jr.

To do what we are doing in this budget to our children, cutting their health care funds, decreasing opportunity, simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief, and we need to reverse it. — Tom Allen

During the 1990s the United States sought to impose the 'Washington Consensus' on Latin American governments. It embodied what Latin Americans call 'neo-liberal' principles: budget cuts, privatization, deregulation of business, and incentives for foreign companies. This campaign sparked bitter resistance and ultimately collapsed. — Stephen Kinzer

Real Texans want their kids to have the best education possible, not the one politicians looking to brag about budget cuts have left us with. — Wendy Davis

I think to balance the budget, probably every federal department has to take cuts in my opinion. — David H. Koch

I would set aside all these budget cuts that are going to devastate the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and the N.S.A. Sequestration, cuts, are not only gutting the military, they're gutting the F.B.I. So if I were president, I would set these cuts aside. I would reinstate the N.S.A. program as robust as possible within the constitutional limits. — Rand Paul

My approach to cutting spending as president, is to do a ten percent across the board cut of all federal agencies, and then ask each of my new agency heads to find another ten percent by drilling down. That's what you do in business to come up with approximately 20 percent cuts for the first fiscal year budget. — Herman Cain

The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old. — Hendrik Hertzberg

Besides the devastating impact that the Ryan budget has directly on individuals, it does nothing to support job creation or our global competitiveness. Investments in both are drastically affected through cuts in funding for transportation and infrastructure projects, as well as funding for research and development. — Albio Sires

When it comes to the budget, we know that we shouldn't be cutting more on core investments, like education, that are going to help us grow in the future. And we've already seen the deficit cut in half. It's going down faster than any time in the last 60 years. So why would we make more cuts in education, more cuts in basic research? Nobody thinks that's a good idea. — Barack Obama

Budget cuts are a sad reality in most newsrooms, and I am concerned that they reduce the collective muscle of journalists who are doing the expensive, and often dangerous, work of on-the-ground reporting. — Jill Abramson

As parents, we need to send our kids back to 'old-fashioned' outdoor summer camps, which have been on the decline as the demand for sports and academics-based camps has risen. We need to fight budget cuts to public parks programs and resist closures of public swimming pools and playgrounds. — Darell Hammond

If the US Government was a family - they would be making $58,000 a year, spending $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand. — Dave Ramsey

If you're really concerned about deficits, you cannot take seriously a budget that would give $30 billion a year worth of tax cuts to not just the top 1 percent but the top 0.1 percent. — Barack Obama

The supposition that there is massive waste to be cut in the civilian budget is simply a myth. To recapitulate: ending all earmarks and foreign aid and achieving all of the specific cuts on civilian programs proposed by the deficit commission, even if such choices were meritorious, would amount to less than 1 percent of GDP. True — Jeffrey D. Sachs

It's not about what the speaker wants. It's not about necessarily what I want. There's two other principles involved here. It's what the constituents in my district want, and they didn't want to raise the debt ceiling unless there were significant structural reforms and spending cuts to help us balance our budget. — Tim Huelskamp

Look, I am not worried about Washington cutting too much spending too fast. I mean, the kinds of spending cuts we're talking about just right now are $100 billion out of a $3.7 trillion budget. — Paul Ryan

The education cuts in the President's budget are both irresponsible and morally unjustifiable. — Chaka Fattah

My budget is similar to the Penny Plan, which cuts 1 percent a year for five or six years and balances the budget. — Rand Paul

We can become very short-sighted in terms of objectives. The first thing to go during times of economic crisis and budget cuts is funding for things that are essential and not-quantifiable, like the arts. Save Big Bird — Julia Stiles

For the fifth year in a row, the Bush budget cuts city core services to pay for wealthy tax breaks. And once again, the mayor's requests were not funded. — Anthony Weiner

All the librarians turned their heads to me in a collective shush. "I'm afraid you have to survive library school, put up with the general public on a daily basis, and endure several years of budget cuts in order to deserve these drinks," Chris told me kindly. "But someday, Dash, all this will be yours! We know how to spot 'em, and you're a young, temporarily one-eyed librarian in the rough! — Rachel Cohn