I don't have many litmus tests, but this is one: Any candidate who doesn't understand that we need to balance the budget should not be president of the United States.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Remarkably, there are leaders in Washington who don't understand why it's so important for us to have a budget.
I would submit a balanced budget if elected president, and it would be painful.
Our priority must be to build a path towards balancing the budget, and we cannot tolerate growing deficits.
No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.
If a budget is designed to show our values, it's clear where the majority stands: against opportunity, against education, and against America's hard-working, tax-paying middle class.
You want to balance the budget in this country? We change the salary structure for Congress and the President. Every year they don't balance the budget, we don't pay them.
I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets.
Well, I think the president has clearly submitted us a tight budget, but it's what's called for if we're going to get spending under control and keep the economy moving in the right direction, with economic growth and job creation activity.
A budget matters to Americans who can't afford to see their taxes go up or lose the jobs that would be destroyed in the process.
There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.