138 National Debt Quotes

Following is our list of national debt quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about government debt.

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Famous National Debt Quotes

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. — Alexander Hamilton

It took $185 trillion of debt to produce about $46 trillion of GDP growth over the last twenty years. — Jeff Booth

A government debt is a government claim against personal income and private property - an unpaid tax bill. — Hans F. Sennholz

It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralise the long-range effects of our national stupidity — Frank Zappa

The debt is like a crazy aunt we keep down in the basement. All the neighbors know she's there, but nobody wants to talk about her. — Ross Perot

Now we are raising the debt limit 3 times, up to $8 trillion, so that our children and our grandchildren will have to pay for the cost of our expenditures. — Chaka Fattah

The national debt has given rise to joint stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage , in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy . — Karl Marx

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. — Herbert Hoover

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. — Thomas Jefferson

Omega candles aren’t possible. US national debt is rising by $1 trillion dollars every 100 days. That’s 100 Omega candles a day. — Samson Mow

Wars are made to make debt. — Ezra Pound

If you want another world war, run up unsustainable debts. — Tucker Carlson

No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence. — Thomas Jefferson

Thanks to decades of accumulated federal budget deficits and, more significantly, imprudent Medicare and Social Security policies, we've stolen almost $60 trillion from our children. — Steven Rattner

A small debt produces a debtor; a large one, an enemy. — Publilius Syrus

Government Debt Quotes

Every American born today owes $43,000 to the federal government the day she or he is born. And we are transferring a tremendous amount of debt to the new generation, much of it owed to overseas creditors who expect to be repaid by our children with interest. — Mark Kirk

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure... It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. — Barack Obama

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. — Thomas Jefferson

National debt quote When a nation becomes devoid of art and learning, it invites poverty. And when poverty comes it brin
When a nation becomes devoid of art and learning, it invites poverty. And when poverty comes it brings in its wake of thousands of crimes.

We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system. And then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again. — Marco Rubio

As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine. — Alexander Hamilton

The real point about credit bubbles is that they are fueled by the promise of government actions, not the reality of what has been achieved. — Russell Napier

National debt quote The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.

These subsidies from four European governments, which include aircraft launch assistance, capital injections, debt forgiveness, have enabled Airbus to develop and range market airliners well below cost. — Norm Dicks

The Government of Iraq also owes a debt to the American and coalition forces who are fighting the insurgency and helping put that country back together after decades of repression. — Ike Skelton

We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. — Mary Elizabeth Lease

With all this consumer debt, business debt, government debt, smaller movements in interest rates have a magnified effect. a small movement can tip the boat. — Bill Gross

Debt Quotes

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think. — Noam Chomsky

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

Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe. - Mark Twain

Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe. — Mark Twain

..we wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes- this debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile. — Paul Laurence Dunbar

A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody. — George Bernard Shaw

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. — Earl Wilson

I feel these days like a very large flamingo. No matter what way I turn, there is always a very large bill. — Joseph O'Connor

Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave. — Thomas Sankara

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The rich man who gives to the poor does not bestow alms but pays a debt. - Ambrose

The rich man who gives to the poor does not bestow alms but pays a debt. — Ambrose

Indebtedness Quotes

One of Satan's greatest tools is pride: to cause a man or a woman to center so much attention on self that he or she becomes insensitive to his Creator or fellow beings. It is a cause for discontent, divorce, teenage rebellion, family indebtedness, and most other problems we face. — Ezra Taft Benson

A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude. — Ruth Benedict

College students today are drowning in debt, and it is hurting them and hurting our economy. We must find a way to help families pay for college without condemning them to a lifetime of indebtedness. — Elizabeth Warren

OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities. — Ambrose Bierce

There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate, to answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Anybody who has ever been in business, anybody who has ever paid bills, anybody who has ever lived in a serious adult life knows that indebtedness is a killer. — Frank Lautenberg

Americans have a strange notion that the ordinary laws of economics do not apply to them. So doubtless they will think they are prosperous if the boom starts, and that deficits and indebtedness are merely signs of how prosperous they are. — Albert J. Nock

Let us candidly confess our indebtedness to the needle. How many hours of sorrow has it softened, how many bitter irritations calmed, how many confused thoughts reduced to order, how many life-plans sketched in purple! — Caroline Wells Healey Dall

The idea of regularly acknowledging our indebtedness to the natural world and giving thanks for the many gifts we receive from it, or considering other species to be our close "relations" which many indigenous peoples still do, couldn't be more alien to most of us. — Charlie Cook

Debt Ceiling Quotes

An increase in the debt ceiling should be accompanied by fundamental policy reforms, substantial budget savings, and a strong enforcement mechanism to tie the hands of any future Congress. — Jerome Powell

The debate we won't be having is whether or not the debt ceiling should be raised. We will not have a situation where people will hold the American economy hostage in order to achieve a specific agenda - at least not until 2013. So we think that is incredibly important as a matter of economic good. — Jay Carney

The truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one. — James Surowiecki

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

First they didn't believe in evolution. Then they didn't believe in global warming. Now the debt ceiling. What I call 'the moron trifecta.' — Bill Maher

Most of the major increases in the debt ceiling have been accompanied by structural changes in the way we raise and spend money. — Charles Bass

It is simply science fiction fantasy to say that, if you do not raise the debt ceiling, that everything is going to collapse. — Mike Lee

If it took multiple debt ceiling hikes, I'd rather achieve the savings. — Bob Corker

We need to get rid of the debt ceiling law. It's anachronistic and it's a problem. — Mark Zandi

I would vote against raising the national debt ceiling. Again, this is about mortgaging the future of unborn generations of Americans. It's a form of taxation without representation. I don't think we can do that. — Mike Lee

Debt Crisis Quotes

Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. — Aldous Huxley

Every financial crisis is made out of excess money and credit. — Russell Napier

All crises have involved debt that, in one fashion or another, has become dangerously out of scale in relation to the underlying means of payment. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I am confident that we can overcome this crisis, provided that we remain united in our effort to address our debt and competitiveness problems. And I think that the Greek people are united; it's important also that the political forces are united in line with the will of the Greek people. — Lucas Papademos

The World Bank is now the biggest culprit in the debt crisis. — Susan George

Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things. — Muhammad Yunus

At this time - we're in a dramatic crisis - euro bonds are precisely the wrong answer. They lead us into a debt union, not a stability union. Each country has to take its own steps to reduce its debt. — Angela Merkel

Our platform calls for a balanced deficit reduction plan where the wealthy pay their fair share. And when your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare - it's patriotism. — Cory Booker

If there is one common theme to the vast range of crises...it is that excessive debt accumulation, whether it be by the government, banks, corporations, or consumers, often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom. — Carmen Reinhart

Debt Management Quotes

Two big lessons: 1: Never use a token you created as collateral. 2: Don't borrow if you run a crypto business. Don't use capital 'efficiently.' Have a large reserve. Binance has never used BNB for collateral, and we have never taken on debt. — Changpeng Zhao

When do stockholders get no benefit from retained earnings? One way is when managements pile up cash and liquid assets far beyond any present or prospective needs for the business. — Philip Arthur Fisher

Every professional athlete owes a debt of gratitude to the fans and management, and pays an installment every time he plays. He should never miss a payment. — Bobby Hull

If you don't have the money management skills yet, using a debit card will ensure you don't overspend and rack up debt on a credit card. — T. Harv Eker

The marathon is all about energy management. I had planned to run it like a track race with strategic surges to blow up my competitors by putting them into oxygen debt, so that is the way I prepared. — Frank Shorter

Too much of the income gains go to too few people, even though all of the stakeholders worked together to make their companies successful. By failing to put enough income into more hands, the GDP grows slower and consumers manage to meet their needs by incurring high levels of debt. — Philip Kotler

When our most important issue is the debt that we're piling on our children and grandchildren, I think it's pretty helpful to have someone in the U.S. Senate who has actually managed billions of dollars and knows how to cut billions of dollars. — Carly Fiorina

The debt austerity would not be problems if we had technological progress. If you doubled the debt in the U.S., and the size of the economy doubled because of technological progress and growth, the two would roughly cancel out and it would all be a totally manageable situation. — Peter Thiel

We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet. In my view we have nothing to show for it. We haven't invested in our roads, our bridges, our waste-water systems, our sewer systems. We haven't even maintained the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us. — Michael Bennett

It is imperative that we make consumers more aware of the long-term effects of their financial decisions, particularly in managing their credit card debt, so that they can avoid financial pitfalls that may lead to bankruptcy. — Daniel Akaka

Credit Card Debt Quotes

High bankruptcy rates, increased credit card debt, and identity theft make it imperative that all of us take an active role in providing financial and economic education during all stages of one's life. — Ruben Hinojosa

Today, people are having to spend so much of their money, to acquire a house and to get an education that they don't have enough to spend on goods and services, except by running into yet more debt on their credit cards and other borrowings. — Michael Hudson

Face the fact that there's only one sure-fire way to erase credit card debt. By picking up a big, shiny pair of scissors and cutting your wife in half. — Bill Maher

Our [western] culture embraces sex addiction. If I drink too much or rack up credit-card debt or lose the rent in Vegas, that's bad. But if I have many lovers, that's good. — Susan Cheever

God's dream is that you have an abundance, that you be totally out of debt, pay your house off, pay your credit cards off, and have so much overflow that you can be a blessing to everyone around you! — Joel Osteen

Once you get into debt, it’s hell to get out. Don’t let credit card debt carry over. You can’t get ahead paying eighteen percent. — Charlie Munger

Congratulations on your job at the bank! Yes. You work for the bank. After taxes, your largest expense is your mortgage and credit-card debt. — Robert Kiyosaki

Absolutely pay off your credit card debt, because a child can always get a loan to go to school, possibly a scholarship, a grant. — Suze Orman

Bad debt is debt that makes you poorer. I count the mortgage on my home as bad debt, because I'm the one paying on it. Other forms of bad debt are car payments, credit card balances, or other consumer loans. — Robert Kiyosaki

The minute a Wall Street firm purchases your debt, your bank no longer has it on its financial statement, which then allows the bank to look for more credit card customers. That's one reason why you get so many credit card offers. — Robert Kiyosaki

Debt By Founding Fathers Quotes

He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing. — Benjamin Franklin

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones. — George Washington

No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable. — George Washington

The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own. — John Adams

Think What You Do When You Run in Debt: You Give to Another Power over Your Liberty — Benjamin Franklin

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years. — Thomas Jefferson

States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct. — Alexander Hamilton

[Avoid] likewise the accumulation of debt. — George Washington

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Read quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
quotes on government, constitution and education

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Read quotes by Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton
quotes on education, federalism and tyranny

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Read quotes by Hans F. Sennholz

Hans F. Sennholz
quotes on life, education and leadership

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Read quotes by Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa
quotes on censorship, life and music

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Read quotes by Ross Perot

Ross Perot
quotes on leadership, education and economy

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Read quotes by Chaka Fattah

Chaka Fattah
quotes on love, life and leadership

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More National Debt Quotes

The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. — Taylor Caldwell

Student debt is crushing the lives of millions of Americans. How does it happen that we can get a home mortgage or purchase a car with interest rates half of that being paid for student loans? We must make higher education affordable for all. We must substantially lower interest rates on student loans. This must be a national priority. — Bernie Sanders

I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country. — Andrew Jackson

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

A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing; it will be powerfull cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry. — Alexander Hamilton

Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay, but we can honor their sacrifice. — Barack Obama

This debt crisis coming to our country. The wall and tidal wave of debt that is befalling our nation. Medicare and Social Security go bankrupt within ten years, we have a debt that is looming so high that in the last year of President Obama's budget just the interest payments on our debt is $916 billion dollars. — Paul Ryan

Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt. — William Cobbett

We don`t need to drive up the national debt by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. — Bernie Sanders

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer. — Hunter S. Thompson

Because Social Security has not contributed to our debt, Americans should be skeptical of any politician who says that benefits Americans have earned must be reduced in order to address our national debt. — Hank Johnson

Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. — Hunter S. Thompson

Do the United States need this? What for? Thousands of miles away from your national territory. Don’t you have anything better to do? You have issues on the border. Issues with migration. Issues with the national debt. More than 33 trillion dollars. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight with Ukraine? Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? — Vladimir Putin

The nations which have put mankind and posterity most in their debt have been small states Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England. — Bill Vaughan

Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to the 9/11 Commission members for their valuable service and important recommendations to improve homeland security. — Jim Ramstad

We owe Christ to the world--to the least person and to the greatest person, to the richest person and to the poorest person, to the best person and to the worst person. We are in debt to the nations. — David Platt

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing"; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams. — Thomas Jefferson

Allow a government to decline paying its debts and you overthrow all public morality-you unhinge all the principles that preserve the limits of free constitutions. Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possibly the incurring of any new debt. — Alexander Hamilton

And as the vicissitudes of Nations beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be in every government a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that, which at any times exists, as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith. — Alexander Hamilton

When you get the economy growing, that's when you can deal with the national debt. — Mike Pence

I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing. — Thomas Jefferson

The current tax code is a daily mugging. — Ronald Reagan

The modern spectacle of vanished forests and eroded lands, wasted petroleum and ruthless mining, national debts recklessly increased until they are repudiated, and continual revision of positive law, is evidence of what an age without veneration does to itself and its successors. — Russell Kirk

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

In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to recover her liberties, they were restored by men of the United Provinces. — George Bancroft

I hope we will never again see such a depression. But I am troubled by the huge consumer installment debt which hangs over the people of the nation, including our own people. — Sayings

I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going. — George Bernard Shaw

The tax code is a monstrosity and there's only one thing to do with it. Scrap it, kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people. — Steve Forbes

The Citizen's Petition reflects Vermont's spirit of pragmatism and across-the-board cooperation. I applaud the 'Campaign to Fix the Debt' for calling attention to one of the country's most pressing problems, our ballooning national debt, and for urging policymakers to find practical solutions. — Peter Welch

Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt 'unpatriotic' - serious talk from what looked to be a serious reformer. Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt. — Paul Ryan

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office. — Barack Obama

The people of this nation are eminently a trafficking people; and the present standard of honesty, as to trade and debts, is very low, and every year seems sinking still lower. — Catharine Beecher

We owe more money than any Nation in the World, and we are LOWERING TAXES. When is the time to pay off a debt if it is not when you are doing well? You let a Politician return home from Washington and announce, 'Boys we lowered your taxes. We had to borrow the money to do it, but we did it.' Say, they would elect him for life. — Will Rogers

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

Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives. — Karl Rove

I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence. It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink. We can debate its origins endlessly and search for villains on ideological grounds, but the reality is pure arithmetic. — Mitch Daniels

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