Reagan Deficit Quotes & Sayings

We now know that inflation results from all that deficit spending. — Ronald Reagan

I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself. — Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan cut taxes to raise the deficit to stop liberals in future years from increasing spending. Obama will raise spending to raise the deficit to stop conservatives in future years from cutting taxes. As he funds every liberal dream - from alternative energy production to infrastructure renovation to more federal revenue sharing - he will force a massive expansion in the size of government for a decade to come. — Dick Morris

Yes, the deficit doctors have their scalpels out all right, but they're not poised over the budget. That's as fat as ever and getting fatter. What they're ready to operate on is your wallet. — Ronald Reagan

The deficit only became a big problem in the Reagan-Bush years. For 12 years, Republican presidents talked about balancing the budget, but failed to propose one. — Dick Gephardt

The reason Ronald Reagan gets slammed for having so badly exacerbated the problem of deficit spending is that he so plainly deserves it. — Daniel Keys Moran

I worked at the White House in the early Reagan administration at a time when the deficit rocket really started to take off. — Christopher Buckley

In his second term, [Ronald] Reagan completed the work of his first term - the rich got really rich, everything was deregulated, advocacy programs were quashed, the Savings and Loan program was trashed, the deficit was tripled, unions were busted, Housing and Urban Developing was in shambles, banks were closing, the military got lots of new toys, the religious right was strong, and AIDS was ignored. — Kate Clinton

When Grover Norquist launched his project to name anything and everything after Ronald Reagan, I humbly proposed that the deficit be re-christened 'the Reagan.' — Timothy Noah

For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation? — Ronald Reagan

Spending on the military doesn't increase the deficit. — Ronald Reagan

The year Reagan was sworn into office, 1981, the United States was the largest importer of raw materials in the world and the world's largest exporter of finished, manufactured goods. ... Today, things are totally reversed: We are now the world's mining pit, the largest exporter of raw materials, and the world's largest importer of finished, manufactured goods.

This has resulted in an enormous trade imbalance, one that has grown from a modest $15 billion deficit in 1981 to an enormous $539 billion deficit by 2012. — Thom Hartmann

Yes, deficits are a problem. I've been saying so for more than a quarter of a century now. But the problem is not the size of the deficit, it's the size of government's claim on our economy. — Ronald Reagan

I don't understand how the Republican party is the party with the reputation for fiscal conservatism and fiscal sanity, when they're the ones who run up the debt. It was Reagan who ran up the debt and now Bush is doing it again, and in between, Clinton and Bush's father, I must say, worked so hard to get that deficit and that debt down. — Bill Maher

I don't think we'll solve the problem of the deficit until three things happen: We need more discipline on spending in Congress. We need a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to balance the budget. And we need to give our presidents a line-item veto. — Ronald Reagan

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

I think if you're going to do a movie about Reagan, you do it about the fact that he created the huge deficit, that he armed the Mujahideen, that he armed Saddam, that he armed Iran, that he armed two-thirds of the Axis of Evil, and that he funded terrorists in Central America. He was, in my mind, a terrible president. — Al Franken

A drastic reduction in the deficit ... will take place in the fiscal year '82. — Ronald Reagan

With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans. — Dick Morris