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Discretionary Quotes

What's left over, and what it can actually cover.

Discretionary shows up at both ends of the ledger here — a gas bill that zaps the money set aside for a washing machine, and a federal budget category lawmakers argue over line by line every year.

There is always the potential for a central bank to engage in discretionary monetary policy and to break the one-to-one link between changes in foreign reserves and changes in the money supply.

Quotes by Steve Hanke

Trillions of dollars in out-of-control entitlement spending cannot be remedied by cuts in NASA, or even in the entire discretionary budget, defense included. Rather, the financial bleeding needs to be staunched where the hole is and nowhere else.

Quotes by Robert Zubrin

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

Quotes by Robert M. Gates

If you or me go to the gas station to fill up our car and it costs us much more than we expected, it will zap our discretionary income. We won't have the extra money to buy that washing machine...

Quotes by Maria Bartiromo

Able Quotes

Naturally, liquidity is a big factor in any market that seems to be a lot of money in the world, and there's a lot of discretionary money.

Quotes by Larry Gagosian

Domestic discretionary spending on education and health care and the environment has been growing at 2 to 3 percent a year. He says we have to rein it in, but he ignores the spending category that is the big spike...

Quotes by John Spratt

In the budget, the president will call for a five-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for national security. This will reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and bring this category of spending to...

Quotes by Jack Lew

I don't think I could advocate for increasing NASA's budget by a factor of two or ten, because I want us to have good roads in our country. I want us to have good education in our country. And NASA's...

Quotes by Heidi Hammel

The American people elected us here to cut spending so we can create an environment for jobs in America. The House has acted. We have demonstrated that we want to see spending, discretionary spending, brought down to levels of 2008....

Quotes by Eric Cantor

Always Quotes

And so we go over the cliff fiscally, and our Republican friends try to pin the blame on discretionary domestic spending, including spending for security. We pass budget resolutions that fall far short.

Quotes by David Price

It is being alleged that the Federal Government is 'cutting' spending. In fact, we are not 'cutting' anything. Defense spending under this budget would rise by 4.3 percent over last year. Other discretionary spending would also rise.

Quotes by Craig L. Thomas

People have their constitutional right to contribute to a campaign and if they have discretionary money that they want to contribute to a candidate, whether a Republican or a Democrat, they should be able to do so.

Quotes by Brian Sandoval

Governing isn't as easy as you think. Many of you have taken pledges that are contradictory - to balance the budget and cut taxes, for example. You must be honest about the numbers, since our annual deficit now exceeds all...

Quotes by Brian Baird

Know the difference between your necessary and discretionary expenses.

Quotes by Alexa Von Tobel

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 'discretionary' cover in this set?
Both personal and federal budgets — a household's leftover spending money and the specific category of federal spending lawmakers argue over each year.
Why would someone search for discretionary spending quotes?
Usually for budget or economics writing about America's spending debates. These quotes are grounded in real examples, like gas prices, rather than abstract fiscal theory.
Is there a quote about the limits of cutting discretionary spending?
Yes — it argues trillions in entitlement spending can't be solved by cuts to the discretionary budget alone, even including defense, drawing a clear line between the two categories.
Do any quotes get personal rather than policy-focused?
One does, describing how an unexpectedly high gas bill zaps the discretionary income a family might have spent on something like a new washing machine.
Is this a purely economic topic?
Mostly, though it touches monetary policy too — one quote discusses a central bank's discretionary policy tools, a more technical, institutional angle than household budgeting.

One quote makes the harder point directly: trillions in entitlement spending can't be solved by cuts to the discretionary budget alone, defense included, a category the American People keep hearing debated.