Marco Rubio: “let me begin by saying that I believe defense spending is the most important obligation of the Federal Government. That…”

“let me begin by saying that I believe defense spending is the most important obligation of the Federal Government. That doesn't mean we throw money away or we put money in places where it doesn't belong or we fund projects that have no utility. But it does mean the most important thing the Federal Government does for America is to defend it. We have benefitted from the fact that for the last 100 years, America has had the most powerful military force on the planet. This is especially true since the end of the Second World War. There have been times in our history when we tried to save money by cutting back on defense spending, and each and every time, it has forced us to come back later and spend even more to make up for it. It is interesting to point out that in times in the past when we have taken a peace dividend--this idea that the world is no longer unstable or unsafe and we can now spend less on defense--each and every time, we have had to come back and make up for it later as a new threat emerged. I don't think we can make the argument that this is a time when the world is stable or peaceful. Yet this is a time of dramatic reductions in defense spending. During this administration, first came the defense cuts of $480 billion over 10 years. Adding insult to injury, by the way, was that the savings found in the defense budget were redirected to already bloated domestic programs.…”