I believe in a strong national defense. But it's my belief that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan poses a threat to national security, and we shouldn't be involved in either area.
On social questions, national defense, economic issues, I'm a strong conservative.
The job of the government isn't to go around and try and make people sacrifice, it's to try and make people free. The reason why we have a national defense is to protect our freedoms.
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.
I spent almost 11 years at university. I have three degrees. I was a nutritional scientist for the Department of National Defense, and then I spent the next 20 years studying it and writing about it.
The American people deserve a blueprint for policymaking that is built upon the Constitution of the United States and the principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability, and a strong national defense.
Just as we need a productive warrior force to carry out our national defense mission, our national workforce must be equally able to carry out our economic mission.
When people see the budget, they're going to say, 'Oh, my God, I wanted a tax cut, but I didn't know what you were going to do to health care and to Medicare and national defense.'
We will never abdicate the security of the United States to a foreign country or refrain from taking action when appropriate. But we cannot ignore the reality that cooperative counterterrorism activities are a key to our national defense.
As a national security aid, I worked with our military to strengthen our national defense.
