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

Of course we have to address the deficit if we win.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt

One of the reasons the deficit got as big as it did, frankly, was because of the economic slowdown, the fall-off in deficits, the terrorist attacks. A significant chunk was taken out of the economy by what happened after the attacks of 9/11.
Dick Cheney

Reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It won't work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation; it was designed for deficit reduction.
Kent Conrad

Reconciliation is a special budget procedure to change entitlement and tax laws. It cannot be filibustered and requires only a simple majority in the Senate to be passed. It is primarily intended for deficit and mandatory spending reduction.
Jeff Miller

So if the euro, if Euroland is to become a reserve center, if the euro is to become a reserve currency, Euroland will have to have a deficit in its overall balance of payments.
Robert C. Solomon

That level of trade deficit throttles real growth in our country and continues the unfortunate path of selling out America. We are not winning the global trade war, we are losing it badly.
Marcy Kaptur

The debt and the deficit is just getting out of control, and the administration is still pumping through billions upon trillions of new spending. That does not grow the economy.
Paul Ryan

The deficit - the U.S. knows our deficit is too large. We are committed to bringing it down. We are bringing it down. The deficit came in for fiscal year '05 at considerably below where it was the prior year.
John W. Snow

The financial report makes it very clear that if we got into honest budgeting today, that in fact we would find ourselves with a much larger deficit than we have today.
Jim Costa

The folks celebrating Jim Bunning are seeing him as an anti-government, anti-spending activist. But to embrace Jim Bunning is to embrace a strange record, if you really are a libertarian, if you really are a deficit hawk, if you really care about spending and responsibility.
Rachel Maddow

The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect.
Sam Ewing

The more competitive value of the dollar turned around the trade deficit.
Martin Feldstein

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.
Noam Chomsky

The only thing growing faster than the federal government's deficit is Chris Matthews' man-crush on Barack Obama.
Tim Pawlenty

The only way that we can reduce our financial dependence on the inflow of funds from the rest of the world is to reduce our trade deficit.
Martin Feldstein

The only way to eliminate the deficit in the long run is through growth.
Edward Lazear

The President forgot to mention the Moon, Mars, and the federal deficit - all of which are sky-high.
Brad Sherman

The president has been a true friend of the ag industry, because he continues to invest large amounts of money at a time when savings is really the goal of the federal government to deal with the deficit.
Mike Johanns

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