A balanced budget takes us in the right direction. Clearly, adding billions and trillions of dollars to our debt takes us in the wrong direction.

The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should betempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands shouldbe curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. 55 B.C.

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"

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.

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.

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.