Since September 11, defense spending has doubled, but the huge increase in our military budget has not led to a huge increase in our safety. Too often, Congress has voted to spend billions of dollars on wasteful defense projects that don’t contribute to our safety and security.

Rep. Quigley has been a leader in taking a stand in favor of smarter, more efficient spending that will save dollars and American lives. He has focused on the need to understand that our resources are limited and the threats we face today are not large-scale armies of the past. By embracing a foreign policy rooted in restraint (including scaling back our military presence in Afghanistan), bolstering intelligence efforts and renewing our focus on effective homeland security, we can lower costs and be safer.

On September 22, Quigley gave a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs outlining the challenges facing the United States when it comes to military and defense spending. He highlighted a new report by the Sustainable Defense Taskforce that found the United States could save $960 billion over the next decade without jeopardizing national security.

Excerpts from the 35 minute speech are above. You can also read the full text of Congressman Quigley’s prepared remarks by clicking here.

Some examples of military spending:

• F-35 Extra engine: As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, study on top of study has shown that an extra fighter engine achieves marginal potential savings but heavy upfront costs of nearly $3 billion.

• Research and Development: $80 billion is spent annually, which is 33 percent more than the Cold War peak in real terms, even though today we face no traditional adversary as powerful as the Soviet Union.

• C-17: We already have 180 of these, and the Pentagon has not requested them for four years, but Congress continues to appropriate funding to purchase them.

• DDG -1000 Zumwalt class destroyer – cost: $18 billion for only 3 destroyers. They are less agile, more expensive than older destroyers, focused on open water instead of the shoreline locations where many of our threats occur.

Quigley has also questioned whether our full-scale military operations in Afghanistan are making us any safer. Video and text of the speech can be found here.

Quigley spoke on the House floor and penned an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times criticizing a bill to purchase extra F22 Raptors that were not requested by the Pentagon. Read the text of his speech here and the Sun-Times piece here.