George W. Bush Quotes

It is time we had a defense budget that lives within its means, accounts for what is truly required in Iraq and provides the best possible support for all our troops.

NDAA should be about providing critical funding for our troops, not debating immigration policy.

I read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State.

We would take a little bit of money out of a huge increase in ballistic missile defense and put it in a place where it will do a lot of good, namely, in targeted pay increases to our enlisted personnel, particularly our NCOs and our junior warrant officers.

We cannot allow anything that's called 'national defense' to justify any and all spending. We need to be very, very careful that we don't overspend and say, 'Oh, that's defense,' when perhaps it isn't.

In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense.

Well, no American wants to in any way hurt our capabilities to national defense, but that doesn't mean an unlimited amount of money, and a blank check for anything they want at any time, for any purpose. Not at all.

Pentagon dollars are essentially seen as a different kind of funding that doesn't have to stand for itself and make an argument for itself in the house of Congress.

Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.

We need a defense budget that's big enough to sustain an increase in the size of the Army.

Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs.

During the 2000 election, the current administration told our military, help is on the way. That is clearly not the case. The administration has failed to request the funds needed for the defense of this Nation. We must give the Army what it needs.

This idea of holding the Defense Department hostage to the tax debate makes me sick to my stomach. Knock it off.

It's a tough time my friends. We need to make sacrifices to ensure our troops have the tools they need in order to get the job done. This budget will help us win the War on Terror.

We need to spend more money to insure that our troops are properly equipped.

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.

Our guns are not called upon to hurl huge projectiles each one of which costs as much as the construction of a happy home.

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

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

It is often easier to assemble armies than it is to assemble army revenues.

Balanced budgets have a lot to do with National Defense.

… war is a matter not so much of arms as of money

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