Congressional Republicans are still full throttle in their efforts to dismantle the automatic spending cuts that would be particularly painful to the Pentagon.
A quartet of Senate defense hawks announced on Wednesday they?ll introduce legislation to undo hundreds of billions of dollars in defense cuts by replacing it with budget savings elsewhere. Those across-the-board cuts were mandated by the supercommittee?s inability to strike a deal slashing the nation?s deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
Continue ReadingGOP senators on defense cuts
?We wanted to make it clear what our intention is so that there is absolutely no doubt, in anybody?s mind, that the across-the-board sequesters to defense spending will not have to happen,? said Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, one of six Republicans who served on the supercommittee.
?It offends the hell out of me that we would even consider that,? said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of the defense cuts. ?These men and women have really gone out of our way to protect all of us.?
Flanked by Graham and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Kyl said the spending cuts that would offset the sequester would be a mix of specific reductions identified during the supercommittee negotiations, the deficit talks led by Vice President Joe Biden and other not-as-well-known proposals, such as a plan drafted by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).
The plan could also include revenue-raisers identified by Republicans during the supercommittee negotiations, such as spectrum auctions, land sales and fees for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae ? which total a little over $100 billion, Kyl said.
The automatic budget cuts, to be split evenly between defense and domestic programs, were designed to pressure the 12 members of the supercommittee to reach a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction deal, but failed to do so and set in motion the automatic cuts ? a sequence of events that McCain derided as an ?idiotic process.?
To be sure, GOP efforts to roll back the defense cuts face an uphill struggle in the Democratic-led Senate and at the White House. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said the automatic cuts should stay in place, and the Obama administration has vowed to veto efforts to rolling back or tweaking those cuts.
Graham on Wednesday called the veto threat ?twisted.?
?I can?t conceive a president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, threatening to veto an effort to save the Defense Department from ruin,? Graham said. ?I would expect the commander-in-chief to come to the aid of those who are going to get devastated.?
The Republican senators expect to introduce their bill when Congress reconvenes in January. The automatic cuts don?t kick in until the beginning of 2013, but the lawmakers said they need to act about a year in advance because Defense Secretary Leon Panetta would need about that much time to plan for those budget cuts.
Some Democrats want to avoid the automatic cuts, too, but haven?t been as vocal about it as the Republicans who want to do away with the defense sequester. That?s where Kyl thinks he can pick off some Democratic support.
?I think, in reality, there is as much fervor on the Democratic side to prevent the across-the-board to nondefense discretionary spending,? said Kyl, who said he?s discussed his proposal with Democrats. ?I suspect [they] would be perfectly supportive of ways to do that reduction more intelligently as well.?
Meanwhile, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said Wednesday that he?s introduced a bill to prevent the defense cuts as well. It would shrink the federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition and use those savings to pay for one year of both defense and non-defense cuts. The committee estimated that defense cuts for fiscal 2013 equals about $55 billion.
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