Quotes About Defense Spending

#1. In 1940, then-Senator Harry Truman headed up a Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. In the course of World War II, more than $15 billion in unnecessary and fraudulent defense spending was identified.

Bernie Sanders

#2. A national government using New Deal programs and the massive defense spending beginning with World War II and continuing through the Cold War was Johnson's vehicle for expanding the Southern economy and making it, as he hoped, one of the more prosperous regions of the country.

Robert Dallek

#3. The most cost-effective move we could make in defense spending would be to shift the focus of CIA operations, giving this agency the directive to make trouble for the Soviet Union.

John P. Wheeler III

#4. Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is.

Kofi Annan

#5. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.

Barack Obama

#6. Cut defense spending as part of cutting all federal spending.

Rand Paul

#7. Defense spending as a share of the economy dropped significantly during the early 1990s, and that was one of the things, along with other policy changes, that put us back on the path to a balanced budget.

Peter Orszag

#8. Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.

Grover Norquist

#9. It is being alleged that the Federal Government is 'cutting' spending. In fact, we are not 'cutting' anything. Defense spending under this budget would rise by 4.3 percent over last year. Other discretionary spending would also rise.

Craig L. Thomas

#10. To begin with, we need to promote greater confidence building measures. This is important in view of the military modernization and growing defense spending that are taking place in many countries.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

#11. Historically, defense spending cuts have preceded increased international turmoil as America's global enemies sense a failure of will.

Ben Shapiro

#12. After September 11, it became unpatriotic to question any homeland-security or defense spending, and that let things get out of control.

Jeff Flake

#13. The last four secretaries of defense have pointed out that defense spending creates jobs. So do pornography, prostitution, and narcotics.

Michael Parenti

#14. Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.

Michel De Montaigne

#15. At Concerned Veterans for America, we've made the case that the defense budget could be targeted for spending reform, but in a targeted fashion that genuinely changes unsustainable spending trajectories while preserving U.S. defense capacity.

Pete Hegseth

#16. I don't think the press has done a very good job dealing with government spending.The Defense Department with the $9,500 toilet seat, that's not the problem anymore. Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are the problem. That's us. That's our generation. There the press never says a word.

Dave Barry

#17. Drama comes more naturally to me. It's the comedy you really have to delve into.

Kathy Bates

#18. Current levels of Pentagon spending may not be able to support current defense strategy. The answer to this problem is right before our eyes: cut the money and change the strategy. That would be acting in the name of a conception of national security that was truly strategic.

William Hartung

#19. To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

Ben Bernanke

#20. We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffering, not because of it.

Dorianne Laux

#21. We can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense. Our strength is not just in the size of our defense budget, but in the size of our hearts, in the size of our gratitude for their sacrifice. And that's not just measured in words or gestures.

Jennifer Granholm

#22. We're supposed to worship Adam Smith but you're not supposed to read him. That's too dangerous.

Noam Chomsky

#23. The anti-tax-cut, soft-on-defense, big-spending Democrats will take the Democratic Party to the edge and maybe over.

Joe Lieberman

#24. I cannot in good conscience vote in favor of tax cuts, irrespective of their size, or to which segment of the population they are targeted, ... Nor can I support any spending increases that are not related to improving our nation's defense from the obvious and serious threats facing us today.

John McCain

#25. Spending an extra dollar on the D.C. public school system isn't spending an extra dollar on education. Spending an extra dollar with the Pentagon doesn't buy you an extra dollar on defense. Republicans need to look skeptically at military spending.

Grover Norquist

#26. Spending on programs such as national defense and funding the operating budgets of all federal agencies represent only 39 percent of our yearly budget, an all-time low.

Paul Gillmor

#27. The Decisions You Make Today Affect The Outcomes Of Tomorrow.

Todd Stocker

#28. We cannot allow anything that's called 'national defense' to justify any and all spending. We need to be very, very careful that we don't overspend and say, 'Oh, that's defense,' when perhaps it isn't.

Grover Norquist

#29. For me, I think being a conservative means you are focused on all four key principles: strong defense, lower taxes, less spending, and defending traditional American values.

Jim Jordan

#30. Millions for defense, but not one cent for survival.

Alfred Bester

#31. In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense.

Jennifer Granholm

#32. We are actually a very rich country with a lot of resources and the ability to do almost whatever we want. We could eliminate poverty in America by spending a fraction of what we spend on defense.

Alex Pareene

#33. Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

Robert M. Gates

#34. The love we do not show here on Earth is the only thing that hurts us in the after-life.

Steven Spielberg