Top 1200 Debt Ceiling Quotes & Sayings

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.

If we weren't running deficits, if we weren't spending more than we were taking in, there would be no reason whatsoever to increase the debt ceiling.

If I was in Congress, I would not vote to raise the debt ceiling.

Our real debt ceiling isn't decided by Washington; it's decided by Beijing.

The bottom line is very simple. You negotiate on this, they will up the ante for the debt ceiling.

The Republican argument that raising the debt ceiling encourages additional future spending is logically irresponsible. The debt ceiling has to be raised to authorize spending already approved by Congress. Despite that fallacy, the GOP has been able to score political points with its argument.

Hikes in the debt ceiling - without any political demands from the opposition party - had been routine until President Obama took office.

Not raising the debt ceiling is not an automatic trigger for a default.

Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It's a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can't get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.

Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite. The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a standstill under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or otherwise.

I hope that the United States would cooperate with the partners to reduce its debt. The debt is a problem. The debt is with you, but unfortunately, the debt is not only with you but with us and with the rest of the world because we all, one way or another, are dependent on the dollar.

I'm not going to raise the debt ceiling.

Goals work. Pick one debt, and then put every dime into paying down that one debt. Once that debt is paid off, start paying down the next debt. Pretty soon it's time to move from paying debt to building savings.

You can look at any industry and sector and then figure out how high is your glass ceiling. Do you want to diversify or do you want to penetrate the ceiling? Because the ones who break the glass ceiling are going to be big-time winners, but it will be a longer-term view on things and requires a lot more courage, a lot more guts.

Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It’s a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can’t get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.

When you don't have as much debt as we do, we don't have to worry about having this debt ceiling fight every single year. And I really think people are getting sick of having this news cycle every single year from Congress, from the Washington bubble.

I think it's important that people know what raising the debt ceiling is. It's Congress giving permission to the federal government to borrow more money that we don't have, and we borrow it for the purpose of spending it.

I have younger friends who are in this pinch where they feel they've been counted out before they've had a chance to prove themselves. They've inherited a lot of debt - not just student debt but environmental debt, political debt. They really feel squeezed.

All the central banks are doing is substituting one form of debt with another form of debt. They're issuing short term debt and using it to buy long term debt. In finance, we tend to think that's a neutral activity, even though those stimulus programs are huge.

I always think a debt ceiling is a good tool to carry something.

When you default on a secured debt, the creditor takes the asset that backs up that debt. When you convert credit card debt to mortgage debt, you are securing that credit card debt with your home. That's a risky proposition.

You watch television and see what's going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.

The debt ceiling is not something to toy with.

The president says we need to raise the debt ceiling because America pays its bills. No if we paid our bills we wouldn't have all this debt. The reason we have to raise the debt ceiling is because we can't pay our bills and we have to borrow money because we don't have any money to pay our bills.

Not raising the debt ceiling does not trigger a default, because we've got enough money to service our debts. Default is when you can't service your debt.

I think the whole issue of a debt ceiling makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anybody who is remotely adroit at arithmetic doesn't need a debt ceiling to tell you where you are.

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.'

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

There was no avoiding the fact that we were going to hit our debt ceiling.

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.

I think at the end of the day we have to raise the debt ceiling, because America pays its bills.

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

I would be embarrassed to tell you how many folks ran saying that they weren't going to spend a bunch of money, they weren't going to raise the debt ceiling, and then they went to Washington, D.C., and did exactly that.

If we hit the debt ceiling, that's... essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic.

I think what's important to understand is if the United States hits the debt ceiling and is unable to pay its debts, the consequences will be immediate and dramatic.

In romantic comedies there's a certain ceiling and a floor that you can't necessarily love as hard, or hate as hard, or have as much pain, because you sink the shop of the romantic comedy. But in a certain drama, like some of the ones I've been doing, the ceiling and the floor was my own. And in many ways, that was a higher ceiling and a lower floor, so that was more of a band-with for those emotions.

I think it's scary for consumer confidence and for confidence in U.S. businesses and potential credit ratings if we don't make sure that we raise that debt ceiling.

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.

I realized early I can manipulate the ceiling in the middle class. The allure becomes how far I can make the ceiling rise.

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.

The death of compromise has become a threat to our nation as we confront crucial issues such as the debt ceiling and that most basic of legislative responsibilities: a federal budget. At stake is the very meaning of what had once seemed unshakable: 'the full faith and credit' of the U.S. government.

The U.S. has a law on the books called the debt limit, but the name is misleading. The debt limit started in 1917 for the purpose of facilitating more national debt, not reducing it. It still serves that purpose. It's unconnected to spending, hurts our credit rating and has been an abject failure at limiting debt.

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.

Obama has been perhaps the most partisan President since Truman. He hasn't learned to be civil - note his insulting speech to Paul Ryan, who did us the courtesy of scoring a budget. The president has to talk to Republicans when it comes to the debt ceiling. He has reached the debt ceiling before anyone expected.

If you ask the question of Americans, should we pay our bills? One hundred percent would say yes. There's a significant misunderstanding on the debt ceiling. People think it's authorizing new spending. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize new spending; it allows us to pay obligations already incurred.

If we reach the debt ceiling, we don't have to default. Getting to that point just won't allow us to reach new debt.

When President Obama was in the Senate, when he was a U.S. senator, he voted against raising the debt ceiling. And he said it was a lack of leadership that had brought us to this point.

We're not going to default. We just won't default. I mean, there are ways of not defaulting even if you don't raise the debt ceiling, and even if you don't fund the government.

While I'd like to be able to simply do all of my financings with a handshake or, possibly, on a napkin written in crayon, I also wish I had a herd of unicorns surrounded by rainbows, a balanced U.S. government budget, and agreement on how to address the debt ceiling issue.

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

Bless his heart, I have respect for Mitt Romney, but I do not have respect for what he has done through this debt increase debate. He did this. He waited until it was a done deal that we would increase the debt ceiling, and more money would be spent, more money borrowed and then spent on bigger government. And then he came out and he made a statement, that he didn't like the deal after all. You know, you can't defer an issue and assume that the problem is going to be then avoided.

An example of good debt is the debt on the apartment houses I own. That debt is good only as long as there are tenants to pay my mortgages. If tenants stop paying their rent, my good debt turns into bad debt.

The only way you can raise the debt ceiling is to change the trajectory of spending - that's my personal preference. But I want the Ways and Means Committee to offer up a solution.

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.

It's a shame that the president doesn't embrace the effort to reduce spending. None of us like using situations like the sequester or the debt ceiling or the operation of government to try to engage the president to deal with this.

Debt ceiling is something that, you know, any time the president asks for the authority to increase the debt ceiling, the debt burden on our children and grandchildren, I think that requires a pretty serious discussion, robust debate.

I don't see why anybody's playing chicken with the debt ceiling.

Learn how to prioritize all your debt. And did you know student loan debt is the most dangerous debt any of us can have?

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

The debt ceiling debacle is almost a horrible metaphor: It's as if a bomb went off at 800 Pennsylvania Avenue and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. I don't know what these guys think they're doing, but it looks like they're committing political suicide.