A Quote by James Madison

A public debt is a public curse. — © James Madison
A public debt is a public curse.
I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.
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.
There's an argument that private debt, in some way, is creating indentured servants in our country. But public debt does not do that. In fact, public debt does the exact opposite - it relieves private debt.
A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.
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.
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.
Much of what's called 'public' is increasingly a private good paid for by users - ever-higher tolls on public highways and public bridges, higher tuitions at so-called public universities, higher admission fees at public parks and public museums.
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. ... Cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence (and) avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.
Nouns are seldom improved by the modifier 'public.' Few of us, given a private alternative, prefer public restrooms or public transportation or public displays of affection.
Public office is a public trust, the authority and opportunities of which must be used as absolutely as the public moneys for the public benefit, and not for the purposes of any individual or party.
In the great depression, things could only be set right by causing the idle plant to work again . . . Roosevelt . . . spent billions of public money and created a huge public debt, but by so doing he revived production and brought his country out of the depression. Businessmen, who in spite of such a sharp lesson continued to believe in old-fashioned economics, were infinitely shocked, and although Roosevelt saved them from ruin, they continued to curse him and to speak of him as 'the madman in the White House.' . . . [It's one more] striking example of inability to learn from experience.
Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.
... the People of God have to elect public servants who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public, and that those who can't tell the difference don't belong in public office.
The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled.
In a progressively privatised city, the defence of public space, the production of new public space, and saving what is public really for the public is very important.
My own views on all matters of public revenue and public expenditure are conditioned by an acute appreciation of whose is the sacrifice that produces public revenue and to whom accrues the benefit of public spending.
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