Irving Kristol Quotes

The world spends two trillion dollars a year on military, and of that two trillion the United States spends one trillion. We have a bigger military than the rest of the world put together. We have 150 foreign military bases.

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.

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

We can always find money for what the military wants.

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

Every dollar needlessly spent on our military … diminishes our overall security.

The U.S. is just in a class by itself in military expenses. It basically matches the rest of the world, and it's far more advanced.

If you refuse to acknowledge that there is any waste that can be culled from the military budget, you are a big-government conservative, and you cannot lay claim to balancing the 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.

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

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

We want to make sure the military gets it right and understands that if they're going to have less money, they're going to have to spend it a lot more smartly.

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.

Spending on the military doesn't increase the deficit.

The U.S. has subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.

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.

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.

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.

Now all of us deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, we realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the process we must not, by our own hand, destroy or distort the American system. This we could do by useless overspending. I know one sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts.

The only one benefiting from this, the American taxpayer, almost half of our taxes, our income taxes, are going to the military and to these wars.

This is another area in which savings can also be moved from wasteful - like the F-35 weapons system that will cost us $1.5 trillion by the time it's done and it's obsolete, you know, it's a weapons system - as well as this global military infrastructure, which is unlike anything the world has ever known at any time.

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.

This will be one of my most important elements. When I talk cost cutting, I do for so many different departments where the money is pouring and they don't even know what to do with it. But when it comes to the military we have to enhance our military. It's depleted. That's the word I tend to use.

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.