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Fiscal discipline can turn the economy around.

Our priority must be to build a path towards balancing the budget, and we cannot tolerate growing deficits.

We're on the verge of a financial collapse unless we balance the budget, and that means some really, really tough decisions.

When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions to hold the line on spending.

The failure to work out sensible budgets makes it impossible for government agencies to make long-term plans, and instead leaves them scrambling to spend money in the short term.

The same undisciplined government spending and social engineering that has undermined our economy over the past 30 years has also been tearing at the social fabric of this land.

We cannot win the future, expand the economy and spur job creation if we are saddled with increasingly growing deficits. That is why the president's budget is a comprehensive and responsible plan that will put us on a path toward fiscal sustainability in the next few years - a down payment toward tackling our challenges in the long term.

The need to change our country's fiscal trajectory, including reforming entitlement programs, is an unassailable reality that will define our time.

As discomfiting as it is to both market optimists and policy activists, a certain amount of instability is inherent to the economy.