As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

HERBERT HOOVER, as quoted in Francis X. Cavanaugh's The Truth About the National Debt

It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges, at the hands of men, who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan.

THOMAS EDISON, as quoted in Moriah Saul's Plantation Earth

Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, speech, May 22, 1939

No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.

THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense

It took the national debt two hundred years to reach $1 trillion. Supply Side Economics quadrupled the national debt to over $4 trillion in twelve years (1980-1992) under the Republicans. Bill Clinton actually paid down the national debt. How did he do it? He raised taxes. It produced the longest sustained economic expansion in U.S. History.

ED SCHULTZ, Straight Talk from the Heartland

The burden of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to pay the interest. If this quantity continue the same, the burden of the national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or less.

THOMAS PAINE, Rights of Man

The [American] national deficit is one of the least understood economic concepts, yet it's one of the best indicators of long-term economic health. You may be wondering, _who owns the national debt?_ The media have led many to believe the Japanese do. _Wrong!_ ... over 80 percent of the total outstanding national debt is in the form of bonds owned by Americans. Americans consider the bonds they buy as assets, not liabilities -- and 80 percent of the interest on the national debt goes right back to Americans as income -- upon which they pay taxes.

LARRY CHAMBERS, The Guide to Financial Public Relations

I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy: it keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be and frees savings to finance increases in the capital stock, thereby boosting productivity and real incomes.

ALAN GREENSPAN, speech, Apr. 27, 2001

Many respected economists and statesmen believe our national debt is neither unwieldy nor a dangerous burden on the country. The trouble is that a vast majority of the American people think otherwise.... It violates basic American ideas of thrift and money management. These strong public feelings cannot be ignored forever.

MORRIS K. UDALL, speech, Jan. 22, 1962