J. William Fulbright Quotes

A budget is a moral document of a nation’s priorities.

Budgets are moral documents. When you put your budget on the table, we see what you really are.

Budgets are nothing if not statements of priorities.

The essence of government is making necessary choices between competing uses of public resources.

Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget.

We got plenty of money in Washington. What we need is more priority.

A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values.

We need to increase education budgets.

The Pentagon budget, like all government spending, is an expression of priorities.

Budgets are blueprints and priorities.

We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.

[The] up-and-down pattern of [defense] spending over the last 18 years averages out to below zero percent real growth. In other words, if defense spending had followed a path of zero percent real growth, the U.S. probably could have obtained more defense for its dollar.

If we can afford large sums of money or other such things as horseracing, and motion picture films, and we do—I'm not arguing against them—then I say we ought to have sufficient sense of values to say that health is more important than these things, and if we can find money for relatively non-essential things, we can find the money to give our people good health.

When efforts are made to shape policy based on budgets rather than the public good, then the needs of the people will not be met.

We as taxpayers don't have a line item veto.

I have seen the ravages of unemployment.... The government will never refuse to go as far as the resources of the country will permit [in order to help]. But do not ask it to commit acts that risk to compromise the balance of the budget.

A behemoth budget does not mean there is much discretion in allocating it.

Budget drives everything that we do.

You can tell an awful lot about a civilization by how it spends its money.

We are putting so much money into retirement benefits that there is little money left for other state services

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.

Budgets reflect our priorities, who we are as a nation, what we're going to put first, and emphasize and invest.

A nation's budget is full of moral implications; it tells what a society cares about and what it does not care about; it tells what its values are.

Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value.

Austerity [in the Defense Department] meant that risks had to be managed, not eliminated.