Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

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.

What I say is, national defense is the most important thing we do in Washington, but there's still waste in the military budget.

I have spoken to Donald Trump about this. He understands the dramatic budget cuts our military has faced.

I have long maintained the military budget is not a jobs bill... and will continue to support the lowest budget possible.

Well, no American wants to in any way hurt our capabilities to national defense, but that doesn't mean an unlimited amount of money, and a blank check for anything they want at any time, for any purpose. Not at all.

During the 2000 election, the current administration told our military, help is on the way. That is clearly not the case. The administration has failed to request the funds needed for the defense of this Nation. We must give the Army what it needs.

At the present time we are keeping our military expenditures below the…minimum which would in themselves ensure national security. By doing so we are able to increase our expenditures to assist in European recovery.

When the greatest part of the [U.S.] budget pays for our defense and the livelihood of retirees, it is pointless to pretend that public spending is an embarrassment consisting only of welfare and waste.

What chiefly governs the 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.

The Pentagon doesn’t need more money. What it needs desperately is a functional procurement system …. The result [of not having one] is not just ordinary waste, fraud and abuse … but also deep and lasting damage to the country’s ability to project power and wage war.

If we don’t take defense spending seriously, it undermines our credibility on other spending issues

If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it's a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.

The military budget must reflect the threats we face, rather than the budget defining those threats.

If the military is to show the capabilities that we demand and expect of it, then the defense budget has to continue to rise.

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.

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.

Let's push the Pentagon off the fiscal cliff.

Pakistan is not about to crack down on terror groups or cut its military budget in order to build roads, schools and hospitals.

The Pentagon has a long tradition of dialing up the threat to get more dollars at budget time.

We can always find money for what the military wants.

The military always asks for more [appropriations] than it gets.

No nation, no matter how destitute, likes to be told how much military "security" to buy.

How much do we really need for the defense of the United States of America? Only the defense to defend its shores? Well I suppose that the maximum for the defense of our shores is one billion dollars. So the rest of our defense budget relates to what we regard as our responsibilities as a world power.

The defense industry understands that the military budgets will continue to be cut until a new threat comes along.

I’m a hawk, but I’m a cheap hawk. I want to cut the Defense budget by 20 percent.