The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Quote Investigator traces the source to Taylor Caldwell’s A Pillar of Iron (1965), p. 483, a fictional narrative passage about Cicero and Antonius, not a letter or speech. On 4 May 1966 Otto E. Passman read an altered version into a congressional subcommittee hearing and credited Cicero in 58 BC; among the changes, the generals became officialdom. A Chicago Tribune column of 16 November 1966 spread Passman’s version. John H. Collins, a historian, challenged the attribution in a Chicago Tribune letter of 20 April 1971 and pointed to Caldwell’s p. 483. In 1992 Herb Caen printed a version ending in public assistance, with a purported date of 55 BC. These printed items and Caldwell’s page are known here through Quote Investigator, not through inspection of the original publications. An official CNN transcript of 12 November 2011 was read directly: Christine Romans attributes a shortened officialdom/foreign-aid version to Cicero in 55 BC, demonstrating continued circulation, not authenticity. Wikiquote’s Misattributed section agrees about the novel. Local searching found no occurrences of budget, officialdom or public assistance in the English On Friendship and On Old Age or the selected English chapters of On Duties; these are limited checks, not an exhaustive search of Cicero’s surviving writings. The exact first appearance of the full present-day wording, including both its opening and its final public-assistance sentence, has not been established. The credit to Caldwell identifies the originating fictional passage, not her authorship of every later editorial change.

1. 1965Earliest found · credited to Taylor Caldwell (fictional narrator)Caldwell’s novel describes the fictional Cicero’s thoughts about a programme of balancing the budget, refilling the treasury and limiting foreign assistance; this is the earliest version located by Quote Investigator, not a direct ancient quotation.Taylor Caldwell, A Pillar of Iron (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1965), 483. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 4 May 1966Credited to Marcus Tullius CiceroCongressman Otto E. Passman reads a modified version at a foreign-assistance appropriations hearing and credits Cicero, 58 BC; the fictional narration is turned into a direct quotation and generals becomes officialdom.U.S. House of Representatives, 89th Congress, 2nd Session, Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill for 1967, hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), remarks of Otto E. Passman on 4 May 1966, 673. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 16 November 1966Spread · credited to Marcus Tullius CiceroChesly Manly’s Chicago Tribune column reproduces the supposed Cicero quotation while reporting Passman’s views on foreign aid and the Great Society.Chesly Manly, ‘Foreign Aid Called Stupidest Program’, Chicago Tribune, 16 November 1966, 2 (article begins on p. 1). Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 3 February 1992Reworded · credited to Marcus Tullius CiceroHerb Caen prints a version ending with work instead of public assistance, credited to Cicero in 55 BC and reportedly taken from a poster in a Brazilian notary’s office.Herb Caen, ‘The Monday Caenicle’, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 February 1992, B1. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
5. 12 November 2011Spread · credited to Marcus Tullius CiceroChristine Romans on CNN’s Your Bottom Line attributes a shortened officialdom and foreign-assistance version to Cicero in 55 BC.CNN, Your Bottom Line, 12 November 2011, 9:30 a.m. ET, official programme transcript, Christine Romans before the interview with John Doggett. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source

This circulates as an ancient warning against public debt, foreign aid and welfare, often assigned to Cicero in 55 or 58 BC. In the source identified by Quote Investigator, Caldwell’s historical novel, the narrator describes what the fictional Cicero thinks Antonius agrees with; it is neither an ancient document nor even a direct speech by Cicero within the novel. Congressman Otto E. Passman subsequently presented a modified version as an authentic quotation.

The modern passage advocates austerity, reduced foreign assistance and dependence on work rather than government support. Its authority in circulation comes from a mistaken ancient attribution, not from evidence that Cicero formulated this programme.

Treats a twentieth-century novelist’s reconstruction as Cicero’s actual words and often treats modern economic terminology as a literal translation from Latin. The circulating form also changes Caldwell’s narration: the generals become officialdom and a later version introduces public assistance.

Not an authentic quotation from Cicero. The originating passage is modern historical fiction, and the familiar form is adapted even from that.

Money, Society, Politics, Change

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Martin Luther King Jr.
• The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. (not found) Mahatma Gandhi
• We must elect World Peace or World Destruction. Bernard Baruch
• A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. (misattributed)
• Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Bernard Baruch

• quoteinvestigator.com/2013/05/15/cicero-budget (Garson O’Toole, 15 May 2013, updated 28 July 2024)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cicero#Misattributed (Caldwell, A Pillar of Iron, p. 483)
• transcripts.cnn.com/show/ybl/date/2011-11-12/segment/01 (primary evidence for modern circulation only)

“The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero. No. A modern adaptation of a passage in Taylor Caldwell’s 1965 historical novel, not a documented statement by Cicero; the familiar wording has been altered in circulation. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/the-budget-should-be-balanced/ (checked 22 October 2026).

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