Business Insider GOP primary debate: on Budget & Economy

Bill Weld: No such thing as government money; only taxpayer's money

Weld: My motto when I was in office was "there's no such thing as government money; there's only taxpayer's money." Boy, has everyone in Washington forgotten about that. There's nobody looking out for the taxpayers there. The Dems want to raise spending by 5% or 10% on social programs. The Republicans want to raise that on military. So they demonize each other until they've both raised enough money to all get reelected. It's a total disgrace.

Q: Do you keep the Trump tax cut?

Weld: Oh, I would keep them. I never met a tax cut I didn't like.

Q: But then where do you cut?

Weld: You cut across the board. You have to zero base the budget and not assume you start with last year's appropriation. You have to measure outcomes instead of inputs. How much money was spent last year--that should be irrelevant. Was it a good program? Increase it. If it wasn't, zero it out. That's how you cut spending, and I did it.

Joe Walsh: Budget deficit is bankrupting future generations

Joe Walsh: Nothing disappoints me more than this. I mean this is why I went to Congress eight years ago because we're bankrupting future generations. We are bankrupting future generations in this country. Both parties do it. When Obama was president, all of us Republicans screamed and howled every day about Obama increasing the debt and the deficits. Trump has actually increased the debt faster than Barack Obama did. Think about that: Trump has increased our deficits faster than Obama has. But all of my former Tea Party colleagues in Congress--what do we hear from them? Not a damn thing. Again, just one more example of the Republican Party now face fealty to Trump and they've forgotten about every issue that they've claimed to believe in.