P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

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

That is the best Government, which best provides for war.

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

Its going to be a squeeze, but we have got to put our men and women in uniform ahead of everything else. We've got to be treating our reservists fairly before we move on to other procurements.

We have the worst-equipped army in the world … our people don’t give a damn. They’re too busy making money.

A militia law requiring all men, or with very few exceptions besides cases of conscience, to be provided with arms and ammunition, to be trained at certain seasons, and requiring counties, towns, or other small districts to be provided with public stocks of ammunition...is always a wise institution, and, in the present circumstances of our country, indispensable.

The Constitution places the responsibility on Congress for setting the size of the U.S. military, ensuring sufficient resources are in place to train and equip it, and funding maintenance programs and replacing worn-out equipment. We have a moral responsibility to ensure that our people are fully prepared and fully supported.

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.

There is a rank due to the United States among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure the peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.

If our economy is strong, that means the military will be strong. If our economy is weak, that weakens our military.

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.

Avoid the necessity of those overgrown Military establishments, which under any form of Government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.

Other things being equal, whether we have large or reduced armaments, the nation which is the strongest industrially is the best equipped for war, because the machine shop and the laboratory are becoming the two most important elements of military preparation.

Continuous paring of appropriations has reduced the Army virtually to the status of that of a third-rate power

Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry.

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.

I think it's encouraging that President Trump is talking about strengthening our national defense, something he ran on again.

I'm very, very pro-defense.

We had eight years of Barack Obama depleting our military, ignoring a lot of the threats around the world.

Our most important job in Congress is to provide for our national defense, and therefore, every year, Congress allocates funds and determines defense priorities in a bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.

The bottom line, addressing defense spending cuts with a meat ax like sequestration will damage defense readiness for decades to come.

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

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Congressional Joint Strike Fighter Caucus, I have been a staunch supporter of the production of the F-35 since day one and understand the importance of its production for my fellow Texans and our nation's security.

We need to fund our troops. We need to protect them. We need to increase homeland security. These are vital national security interest we need to fund.