The defense budget is more than a piggy bank for people who want to get busy beating swords into pork barrels. — George H. W. Bush
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
In this ever-changing world, it's more important than ever that our top-notch military continues to receive the resources needed to serve and protect our country. — Max Baucus
Historically, defense spending cuts have preceded increased international turmoil as America's global enemies sense a failure of will. — Ben Shapiro
It will be sufficient to point to the enormous burdens which armaments place on the economic, social, and intellectual resources of a nation, as well as on its budget and taxes. — Ludwig Quidde
Let us wage a moral and political war against war itself, so that we can cut military spending and use that money for human needs. — Bernie Sanders
This nation can no longer tolerate the autonomous conduct of any single service. A waste of the resources of America in spendthrift defense is an invitation to disaster for America. — Louis A. Johnson
Our military should spare no expense to ensure the safety of our troops, particularly as they confront a hostile insurgency and roadside bombs throughout Iraq. — Christopher Dodd
The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded. — Ban Ki-moon
The last four secretaries of defense have pointed out that defense spending creates jobs. So do pornography, prostitution, and narcotics. — Michael Parenti
Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. — Hunter S. Thompson
If you compare NASA's annual budget to explore the heavens, that one year budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore the oceans for 1,600 years. — Robert Ballard
We are the biggest donor to the United Nations, contributing 22 percent of the regular operating budget and nearly 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. — Cliff Stearns
America is secure because we can afford the strongest military in history. Once the U.S. economy is no longer dominant, we are no longer safe, and the world becomes chaotic. — Tucker Carlson
Military Spending Quotes
General Flynn was investigating money laundering through military operations at the Pentagon before the Deep State had him removed. Today the Pentagon cannot account for $3-Trillion. We are spending over a Trillion dollars plus to service our sovereign debt. Flynn was right! — Douglas Macgregor
World military spending has now risen to over $1.2 trillion. This incredible sum represents 2.5 per cent of GDP (global gross domestic product). Even if 1 per cent of it were redirected towards development, the world would be much closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. — Ban Ki-moon
The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the world had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood. — Michael Hastings
I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
If somewhere is a deficiency the normal American answer would have been well then, let's spend some more money, build some more weapons and deploy them. That's the normal way of thinking of the military, in America not only but also all over the place, but America or Russia or other countries. — Helmut Schmidt
National security - the military is the first thing we should spend money on. You have to fully fund that first. And then you should be paying for everything else. — Marco Rubio
While our nation faces many challenges that must be met regarding homeland security and our military readiness, it is imperative that we live within our means and wisely spend taxpayer dollars. — Michael Crapo
While our nation faces many challenges that must be met regarding homeland security and our military readiness, it is imperative that we live within our means and wisely spend taxpayer dollars. — Michael Dean Crapo
I do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East. — Bernie Sanders
Together, we can make ourselves a nation that spends more on books than on bombs, more on hospitals than the terrible tools of war, more on decent houses than military aircraft. — Robert Kennedy
Defense Spending Quotes
Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is. — Kofi Annan
I spend a great deal of my personal time trying to figure out one thing, which is, at a given point in time, how should you balance aggressiveness and defensiveness in your portfolio. — Howard Marks
I talked to General Downer about some of the funding about the National Guard and some of the civil defense workers, the firefighters, the police officers, and the way that FEMA is making them spend that money. We have got a problem there. — Lynn Westmoreland
If I was mentoring a young fighter, I'd tell him to spend more time on boxing. That doesn't mean I would ignore kickboxing - you still need to learn the defenses - but in stand-up, it's hard to beat good, solid boxing. — Chael Sonnen
Today, the US spends less on defense as a percentage of our economy than we did at any time since he Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the world's only superpower, that is an invitation to very serious trouble. — Steve Forbes
After September 11, it became unpatriotic to question any homeland-security or defense spending, and that let things get out of control. — Jeff Flake
I think we will have to spend more on defense, for infrastructure, for extension of the broadband network and also for domestic security. — Wolfgang Schauble
Cyber Command is supposed to be defending our critical infrastructure at home, but they are spending so much time looking at how to attack networks, how to break systems, and how to turn things off. I don't think it adds up as representing a defensive team. — Edward Snowden
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
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
Government Budget Quotes
If congress refuses to obey its own rules. If congress refuses to pass a balanced budget. If congress refuses to read the Bills. Then I say, sweep the place clean, limit their terms, and send them HOME! — Rand Paul
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. — William Vickrey
Ed Balls has made it crystal clear that, left to its own devices, a Labour government would simply carry on with the same budget policies as the Tories. — Nicola Sturgeon
It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t. — Paul Krugman
When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident. — Ronald Reagan
If a government resorts to inflation, that is, creates money in order to cover its budget deficits or expands credit in order to stimulate business, then no power on earth, no gimmick, device, trick or even indexation can prevent its economic consequences. — Henry Hazlitt
The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. — Thomas Jefferson
A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. — John F. Kennedy
The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending. — Thomas Sowell
Economics and finance is the final frontier for women; it’s the last thing they will conquer because controlling finance is at the heart of everything in government. — Liz Truss
Us Military Quotes
None of us can change our yesterdays but all of us can change our tomorrows. — Colin Powell
I am a Soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight. — George S. Patton
Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us in the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether or not to follow. — Pat Tillman
There's a storm inside of us, a burning river, a drive. You push yourself further than anyone could think possible. You are never out of the fight. — Marcus Luttrell
The Americans have surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they will learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointed at you; we'd be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine. — Nikita Khrushchev
They're on our right, they're on our left, they're in front of us, they're behind us; they can't get away from us this time. — Chesty Puller
Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat. — Hermann Goring
People tell me I saved hundreds and hundreds of people. But I have to tell you: it’s not the people you saved that you remember. It’s the ones you couldn’t save. Those are the ones you talk about. Those are the faces and situations that stay with you forever. — Chris Kyle
The Army of Northern Virginia was never defeated. It merely wore itself out whipping the enemy. — Jubal Early
My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity especially on the situation in Gaza shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma — Desmond Tutu
Budgeting Quotes
One minute we can be in a small club, the next minute we can be in a coliseum, and the next minute we can be in a small auditorium. It varies, depending on the promoter, the budget, and the travelling distance. — Ben E. King
And then fourth, we have that essential group of people who track programs and budgets to ensure that they align with the needs of preparation and warning, counterintelligence and support to the operational war fighter. — Stephen Cambone
Since Star Wars, that film's success led to bigger budgets, more hardware, that the great movies like the ones I did, which were studio movies, are now independent movies. They range from half a million to several million, and a lot of those have very interesting roles. — Faye Dunaway
The administration has a disturbing pattern of behavior when it comes to budgeting not only for the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for military requirements not directly related to these conflicts. — Russ Feingold
The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
My capital budget maintains my commitment to the education of children, health of the Chesapeake Bay, and safety of all Maryland citizens. We will continue to focus on the five pillars of my Administration as we build today and look forward to the projects of the future. — Robert. L. Ehrlich
My primary platform is to cut the costs on the military. Again, what we were told was a peace dividend after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We were going to cut our military budget from about $600 billion a year to $200 billion a year. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
If our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we won't have much strength and, eventually, we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years, we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not, as our military friends say, a 'robust strategy.' — Mitch Daniels
Bill Clinton kept funding Star Wars. He took the biggest military budget to Congress in history. He routinely bombed Iraq, and he kept the barbaric sanctions in place. He's really played his part. The George W. Bush gang has taken it just a little further. — John Pilger
Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs. — Herman Kahn
Both [Donald] Trump and Hillary [Clinton] want bigger military budgets and Hillary supports President Obama's one trillion dollar expenditure to so-called upgrade nuclear weapons. P — Ralph Nader
According to the National Priorities Project, military expenditures are 54% of the budget. The next biggest line item is 7%. And there are a whole bunch of 7 percents. So in short, we have a military budget surrounded by a lot of footnotes. This is not serving us well. — Jill Stein
The reality is, the United States has global interests. Our defense budget is about the same as the defense budgets or military budgets of every other country in the world put together. — Robert M. Gates
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
The only way you can do that decrease taxes, balance the budget, and increase military spending is with mirrors, and thats what it would take. — John B. Anderson
Hillary Clinton is going to find common ground with the Republicans on foreign and military affairs. They both want to enhance the military budget. — Ralph Nader
The biggest budget is the military budget. For what? We're fighting two wars in very small countries that have no nuclear weapons, that have no capabilities to destroy anything. They probably couldn't even get to America. — Lupe Fiasco
What chiefly governs the [U.S.] military budget is the need to spend enormous sums of money in a useless way. The allegedly powerful Pentagon is simply a receptacle for wasteful expenditure, just as a city dump is the receptacle for the refuse of a city. — Walter Karp
The military budget is simply an enormous pork barrel of special privilege, the privileges taking the form of windfall profits, of no-risk profits and, most importantly, of enormous outlays of capital supplied by the Pentagon to arms contractors. — Walter Karp
Pentagon's readiness and modernization problems are not due to budget cuts. The are the result of habitual modes of conduct evolved during the Cold War and a desire by the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC) to protect its comfortable life style in a world that is changing rapidly. — Franklin C. Spinney
The only way you can do that Balance The Budget, Decrease Taxes, and Increase Military Spending is with mirrors, and that's what it would take. — John B. Anderson
One year of the world's military spending equals 700 years of the U.N. budget and equals 2,928 years of the U.N. budget allocated for women. — Zainab Salbi
But if our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we won't have much strength and, eventually, we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years, we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not, as our military friends say, a 'robust strategy.' — Mitch Daniels
Since the first Gulf War in 1991, the Chinese have been increasing their military budget roughly by 11 percent a year on average. There's no way that China will be able to sustain that sort of military expenditure. And then the most important reason is because of its population changes. — Howard W. French
The collective shortfall of the 3.08 billion people (47 percent of world population) who, in 2005, lived below $2.50 per day was $507 billion per annum, which indeed comes to about two-thirds of the present US military budget. This gives us a rough sense of how much the eradication of poverty would cost. — Thomas Pogge
I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is a combination of the budget cuts Barack Obama has, as well as the sequestration cuts. That, in my view, is making our future less certain and less secure. — Mitt Romney
When it comes to our military, what we have to think about is not, you know just budgets, we've got to think about capabilities. — Barack Obama
America's military is second to none in the world. We're blessed with terrific soldiers, and extraordinary technology and intelligence. But the idea of a trillion dollars in cuts through sequestration and budget cuts to the military would change that. — Mitt Romney
The budget for nuclear forces in the United States is on the order of $25 billion or so. That includes warheads, delivery systems, command and control; does not include environmental clean-up, which is another maybe $10 billion or so. So that's about 5% of the U.S. military budget. — John Burroughs
Historically, several policy domains, including that of foreign policy towards the US and India, budget allocations etc, have been controlled by the Pakistani military, and the civil-military divide can be said to be the most fundamental fracture in Pakistan's body politic. — Noam Chomsky
I don't want to revisit history or try to re-interpret it, you know, but starting from where we are now, given the experience that we've had in the last, you know, since 2001, which has been an utter disaster, I don't think it's benefited us. Half of our discretionary budget, right, it's like 54% of our discretionary budget right now is being spent on the military. This is not working. — Jill Stein
The other piece of this is that we call for cutting our bloated and dangerous military budget. And this is something that is made possible by moving to 100% clean renewable energy, where we cannot justify wars for oil, and where we cannot justify having some 700, 800 bases gathered around the world in something like 100 countries in significant measure protecting either access to fossil fuels or protecting routes of transportation. — Jill Stein
The two-war strategy is just a marketing device to justify a high [military] budget. — Merrill McPeak
I would set aside all these budget cuts that are going to devastate the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and the N.S.A. Sequestration, cuts, are not only gutting the military, they're gutting the F.B.I. So if I were president, I would set these cuts aside. I would reinstate the N.S.A. program as robust as possible within the constitutional limits. — Rand Paul
Never discount a country by their size or resources. What may not be useful to yours, could be greatly beneficial to other lands in need. Everything exists with a purpose. True wealth is what cannot be seen. While one country can have a huge powerful military, another land may lack the budget and manpower to compete with it -- but be filled with happy citizens. — Suzy Kassem
The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion - a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget - almost matching that of the rest of the world combined - is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher . — Noam Chomsky
But you have to have a vision of what kind of military you are trying to build in order to get the [budget] cuts to make sense. — Jessica Mathews
The Chinese military budget today is officially listed as, I think, about $15 billion. But even if you double it, that's only a tenth of ours. So the possibility of China challenging the United States for the next ten years over the Pacific is next to zero. There could be a conflict between us and China over Taiwan, but I think that, too, will not occur with the proper policies on both sides. — Henry A. Kissinger
We need to reduce military budgets; raise living standards; engender respect for learning; support science, scholarship, invention, and industry; promote free inquiry; reduce domestic coercion; involve the workers more in managerial decisions; and promote genuine respect and understanding derived from an acknowledgement of our common humanity and our common jeopardy. — Carl Sagan
Every democracy must involve civil society in the process of establishing budgets, and all sectors of society must be consulted to determine what the real priorities of the population are. Lobbies, including military contractors and other representatives of the military-industrial complex, must not be allowed to hijack these priorities to the detriment of the population's real needs. — Alfred-Maurice de Zayas
A ten per cent reduction in military expenditures per year would be reasonable, coupled with a programme of retraining the workforce and redirecting the resources in a manner that creates employment and advances social welfare. I also encourage all States to contribute to the UN's annual Report on Military Expenditures by submitting complete data on national defence budgets. — Alfred-Maurice de Zayas
Meanwhile, the U.S. debt remains, as it has been since 1790, a war debt; the United States continues to spend more on its military than do all other nations on earth put together, and military expenditures are not only the basis of the government's industrial policy; they also take up such a huge proportion of the budget that by many estimations, were it not for them, the United States would not run a deficit at all. — David Graeber
The Cold War went on for so long that it bred a kind of worldwide military establishment. Even when budgets went down in the early and mid-nineties, it didn't really affect it. — Robert D. Kaplan
Often GOP political strategy seems like the human wave theory of the Chinese military translated to politics. Where Beijing uses masses of soldiers to overwhelm their adversaries, the GOP uses huge campaign budgets as a substitute for strategy, thought or issues. — Dick Morris
Far from being reluctantly propelled into hostilities by popular war fever, leaders incite that fever in order to gather support for their war policies. Thereby do they attempt to distract the public from pressing domestic matters, serve the overseas interests of U.S. investors, justify gargantuan military budgets, and present themselves as great leaders. — Michael Parenti
The only way to meet pressing social needs and be fiscally responsible is to cut the runaway Pentagon budget, which now almost equals the military spending of all other countries in the world combined. — Dennis Kucinich
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