Robert Taft Quotes

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.

Do we go back and be the mushy middle party? Or do we have conservative, principled ideas for all the issues of the day, from the economy, from foreign policy, defence, security, that's the choice.

Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.

The Defense Department has a great deal of influence on foreign policy, and State has very little impact on defense policy.

How do you balance the budget, cut taxes and increase defense spending at the same time? It's very simple. You do it with mirrors.

One of these days I’m going to blast President Truman’s State Department wide open.

Balanced budgets have a lot to do with National Defense.

In Washington, the funds available to the several other agencies for their overseas operations exceed those available to the State Department; the White House has not always given the State Department the necessary support.

I'm finding myself really angry over spending and the deficit. I'm finding myself really angry over what's happening in the Middle East, the decision to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. I'm angry about cap and trade. And I've been on record for a long time on the failed war on drugs.

Well, I am a Republican, and I would run as a Republican. And I have a lot of confidence in the Republican Party. I don't have a lot of confidence in the president. I think what's happening to this country is unbelievably bad. We're no longer a respected country.

People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren.

On Capitol Hill, House Republicans have been doing our part. We've been hard at work developing policies that will help empower all Americans. We're beginning to see results. We reduced taxes for everyone.

The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be 'What the hell you mean we're out of missiles?'

Liberals like using government to solve problems in OUR country and conservatives are using our government to solve problems in OTHER countries.

We've got to start worrying about America. And if we don't start dealing with the debt we have and the deficit spending we have in Washington, politics doesn't matter, because the American people do realize that they have to balance their budgets.

Never before in the history of civilization has there been a tax cut in time of war.

A long term tax cut is not a tax cut at all unless it is accompanied by a spending cut.

The Secretary of State has always stood as much alone as the historian. Required to look far ahead and around him, he measures forces unknown to party managers, and has found Congress more or less hostile since Congress first sat.

Only when the budget has been balanced and a substantial amount set aside for debt retirement, should we consider tax reduction.

Anybody can balance a budget if they raise taxes.

...the policies that the United States has chosen unfortunately have brought about the wrong sentiment toward the United States and has only increased, and will only increase, extremism in our region.

The war is going to end because we're gonna have such a political and financial havoc here with the devaluation of our dollar, because we just can't keep affording it. This is usually how empires end, by spending too much money maintaining their empire. We're in 130 countries, we have 700 bases around the world, and it's going to come to an end. I want it to come to an end more gracefully and peacefully, follow the constitution, and follow a more sensible foreign policy.

… the individuals who are at the top of the foreign policy hierarchy, both at State and at the National Security Council, tend to be less than sophisticated … about economic issues.

Reduction in taxes will be justified only as we can show we can succeed in bringing the budget under control.... Until we can determine the extent to which expenditures can be reduced, it would not be wise to reduce our revenues.

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.