Wolfgang Schauble Quotes

If the Pentagon truly confined itself to providing defense, then presumably we wouldn't need a whole separate government agency to provide 'Homeland Security.'

I think it's really important to start thinking about infrastructure as essential national security.

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

Fighting terrorists does not require half a trillion dollars worth of conventional and nuclear forces.

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

There's nothing magic about spending on tanks and bombs rather than roads and bridges.

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.

I was able to promote a strong defense budget when it could have been cut a lot more severely.

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

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

Let's push the Pentagon off the fiscal cliff.

We need to stop spending money on those weapons systems that do not advance national security.

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

As I said a moment ago, there is no higher priority in our budget, or certainly in the budgets of the past few years, than providing for what is needed for the protection and security of our country and support of our troops.

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

The defense budget has become a jobs program.

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.

The safety of the country stands above all other considerations, and no matter what the cost, the safety of the country must be assured.

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.

There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it.

Americans will cheerfully forgo the luxury of new automobiles in order to assure adequate mechanized equipment for defense.

It is not how much you spend on defense as much as how you spend it.

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

Foreign policy debates are frequently segregated from domestic policy ones, so commentators who propose increasing the defense budget or sending more foreign aid are seldom asked to explain which domestic programs they’d cut or which taxes they’d raise, in order to find the money.

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