Loren B. Thompson Quotes

Contrary to … conventional wisdom, the consequence of past U. S. Defense cuts were not bad …. austerity can be useful in forcing Washington to think strategically, something it rarely does when times are flush.

Austerity [in the Defense Department] meant that risks had to be managed, not eliminated.

Base closings [are] the most atrocious waste of money I have ever seen in my life.

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.

The way to cut the military budget is to go to the commanding officer of each military facility and tell him he will get another star if he cuts his budget, and we will be trampled in the stampede to save money.

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

If we're going to spend more money, it should go to the soldiers, Marines, and airmen to increase their salaries.

When you cut a half-a-trillion dollars from the defense budget, it affects almost every area in the defense budget.

If we can't find cuts in the defense budget, we're not looking carefully enough.

The only way to make budget cuts is to bring down force structure.

As Secretary of Defense my job would be much easier if I didn't have to put up with [budget] cuts.

We can always find money for what the military wants.

The good news is the Pentagon is going to make some significant budget cuts. The bad news is: They want to kill a plane that's built in your district.

The ideal weapons system is built in 435 congressional districts, and it doesn't matter whether it works or not.

How does a government reduce expenditures? To be absolutely flat about it, 99 per cent of it is accomplished by putting people out of work. Now that is a tough way to say it, but it is a fact.

We can cut the Defense Department budget because we’ve got bombs running out of our ears.

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.

Whenever people in Washington complain about spending cuts, they mean spending cuts that would affect defense contractors. They want to massively increase spending cuts everywhere else in the budget.

I think there [are] great economies that can be made starting with a round of base closings, ... I want the president to veto these pork-barrel spending bills which have grown to incredible obscene levels. I believe there are a number of weapons systems that have to be eliminated.

The Military Industrial Complex. President Eisenhower had it wrong. It’s the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.

We found enough fat in the Defense Department to send a truck of potato chips to the obese.

Sometimes Republicans want to cut the social welfare programs and yet they ask for billions and billions more for the Defense Department. I don’t take that approach.

The mainstream of both the Republican and Democratic Parties are equally committed to militarism today.